sept03 TFP

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No. 32, February 2004
CIA Warns of Iraq Civil War
Devastation and grief follow
two suicide bomb attacks in Iraqi
Kurdistan Feb. 1. Among 100 victims were leaders of two Kurdish
political parties. Americans are
not the only targets in Iraq’s
increasing violence.
By Warren P. Strobel and
Jonathan S. Landay
WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 — CIA officers
in Iraq are warning that the country may be
on a path to civil war, current and former
U.S. officials said Wednesday, contradicting the upbeat assessment President Bush
gave in his State of the Union address. The
CIA officers’ bleak assessment was delivered verbally to Washington this week, said
the officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because of the classified information involved.
The warning echoed growing fears that
Iraq’s Shiite majority, which has until now
grudgingly accepted the U.S. occupation,
could turn to violence if its demands for
direct elections are spurned.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s Kurdish minority is
pressing its demand for autonomy and shares
of oil revenue.
“Both the Shiites and the Kurds think
that now’s their time,” said one intelligence
officer. “They think that if they don’t get
what they want now, they’ll probably never get
it. Both of them feel they’ve been betrayed
by the United States before.”
These dire scenarios were discussed at
meetings this week by Bush, his top national
security aides and the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said a senior
administration official, who requested
anonymity.
Another senior official said the concerns
over a possible civil war weren’t confined
to the CIA but are “broadly held within the
government.”
Officials are scrambling to save the U.S.
exit strategy after concluding that Iraq’s most
powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al Husseini al Sistani, is unlikely to drop his
demand for elections for an interim assembly
that would choose an interim government
by June 30.
Migrant Workers Expose
Slavery Rings
By Kari Lydersen
FLORIDA — Mathieu Beaucicot is an immigrant from
Haiti who came to the United States 11 years ago to earn
money to send back to his family. He spent years getting
up every morning at 4 a.m. to await the old school buses
that would take him to the fields in Immokalee, Florida,
for long days of picking tomatoes, oranges, and other
fruits and vegetables. Beaucicot, 48, worked to the point
of exhaustion each day, but after buying small rations of
food and paying his rent, he found he rarely had any
money to send home.
“In Haiti there was no money and the work was hard
but you could have a beer, relax, spend time with your
family,” Beaucicot says in Spanish. “Here all you do is
work. I work when I’m tired, I work when I’m sick and I
get no Medicaid, no Social Security, no health insurance.
I work so hard for almost no money.”
Beaucicot is not alone. The National Agricultural Workers
Survey (NAWS) recently reported that migrant farm workers
earn an average of $7,500 or less per year, well below the
poverty line. Wages are so low partly because the agricultural workforce is largely nonunion.
Farm workers find it hard to organize given they are
usually temporarily hired by contractors employed by large
growing operations. The contractors are not known among
the public, so pressure campaigns are difficult to build,
and the growers and corporations that buy the produce distance themselves from labor complaints by pointing out
that they don’t employ the workers directly.
On top of that, a majority of the workforce is undocumented immigrants reluctant to organize or make waves
because they fear being deported.
But Beaucicot is part of a growing movement in south
Florida that is having ripple effects across the nation. This
movement, spearheaded by the Coalition of Immokalee
Workers (CIW), is slowly gaining better conditions for the
most vulnerable agricultural workers through industrywide horizontal organizing, which takes on fly-by-night
contractors, growers and corporations that eventually buy
their produce.
SLAVERY continued on page 14
INSIDE this issue:
Health Care Benefits on the— 3
Picket Line— 4
Stress Epidemic Hits Iraq Troops— 5
The Return of Debtor’s Prison— 6
Khadaffi’s WMD Sham— 9
U.S. May Strike Syria— 9
Slaughterhouse Politics— 11
Sección en Español— 15&16
Bremer would then hand over power
to the interim government.
The CIA hasn’t yet put its officers’
warnings about a potential Iraqi civil war in
writing, but the senior official said he
expected a formal report “momentarily.”
“In the discussion with Bremer in the
last few days, several very bad possibilities
have been outlined,” he said.
Bush, in his State of the Union address
Tuesday, insisted that an insurgency
against the U.S. occupation “will fail, and
the Iraqi people will live in freedom.”
“Month by month, Iraqis are assuming
more responsibility for their own security
and their own future,” he said.
In an interview with Knight Ridder on
Wednesday, a top cleric in Najaf appeared
to confirm fears of potential civil war.
“Everything has its own time, but we
are saying that we don’t accept the occupiers
getting involved with the Iraqis’ affairs,”
said Sheikh Ali Najafi, whose father, Grand
Ayatollah Bashir al Najafi, is one of the
four most senior clerics. “I don’t trust the
Americans — not even for one blink.”
Source: Knight Ridder News Service
Federal Judge Rules Part of
Patriot Act Unconstitutional
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 26 — A federal judge has declared
unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars
giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated
foreign terrorist organizations.
The ruling marks the first court decision to declare a part
of the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism statute unconstitutional,
said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who
argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project.
In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available
Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban
on providing “expert advice or assistance” is impermissibly
vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.
John Tyler, the Justice Department attorney who argued
the case, had no comment and referred calls to the department press office in Washington. A message left there was
not immediately returned.
The case before the court involved five groups and two
U.S. citizens seeking to provide support for lawful, nonviolent activities on behalf of Kurdish refugees in Turkey.
The Humanitarian Law Project, which brought the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs were threatened with 15 years in prison
if they advised groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of
the Kurds’ campaign for self-determination in Turkey.
The judge’s ruling said the law, as written, does not
differentiate between impermissible advice on violence
and encouraging the use of peaceful, nonviolent means to
achieve goals.
“The USA Patriot Act places no limitation on the type
of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited and
instead bans the provision of all expert advice and assistance regardless of its nature,” the judge said.
Cole declared the ruling “a victory for everyone who
believes the war on terrorism ought to be fought consistent
with constitutional principles.”
Source: The Associated Press
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REGIONAL
NAFTA Draws Scorn
By Laura Youngs
GREENSBORO, Jan. 12 — Huddled together in freezing
temperatures and holding signs reading “Open Borders for
the People, Not Profit,” more than 100 protesters gathered
Saturday (Jan. 10) to send a message denouncing the
North American Free Trade Agreement.
“NAFTA has been devastating to North Carolina, and
we call it a weapon of mass destruction!” cried Theresa
El-Amin before the enthusiastic crowd as cars sped by
behind her. El-Amin is a member of both the Southern
Anti-Racism Network and Triangle Jobs with Justice.
Using anything from plastic paint buckets to large
plastic barrels as drums, the Greensboro Radical Drum
Corps chanted “No More NAFTA” as others handed out
flyers in the 1960s-style green and white strip mall.
“NAFTA was supposed to create better jobs and living conditions for the people of Mexico,” said Deborah
Kelly, director of Centro de Accion Latina, a Greensboro
Latino workers’ rights organization. “(But) we still see people
crossing the border and that means to me that there are not
ideal conditions.”
Launched on Jan. 1, 1994, NAFTA allows for free
trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico. The
agreement has been blamed for the loss of U.S. jobs,
including thousands in North Carolina.
“The loss of jobs is the problem,” said Joe Bowser,
Durham County Commissioner and member of the Durham
area National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People. “We have to put an end to that. We have to find a
way to repair the damage NAFTA has caused.”
“Globalization has really taken away a lot of the
dreams and aspirations of so many of our workers here in
North Carolina,” said Gray Newman, district supervisor of the
Mecklenburg Soil and Water Conservation District. “We
need to keep our jobs here and give our workers a voice.”
Source: Daily Tar Heel
Consider This...
TROUBLE IN WESTERN N.C.
Winter can be tough in western North Carolina, but the
weather is the least of folks’ worries out there this month.
Three different major manufacturing plants announced
in January that they will close, leaving more than 1,100
people out of work.
Factories owned by Drexel Heritage, Steelcase, and
Cooper Bussmann are closing, dealing another blow to
an area that already suffers from some of the highest
unemployment rates in the state. Textile jobs are long
gone in most places, and other manufacturers appear to
be following suit.
To make matters worse, people are blaming the usual
suspects. It’s the fault of the Chinese and the Mexicans,
say some, or it’s the fault of the feds for giving away jobs
to those same foreigners, say others.
A closer look, however, reveals that the companies
themselves are closing these plants for the sake of shortterm profits, without regard for either long-term corporate
interests or the welfare of the communities in which
they’ve operated for decades.
Cooper Bussmann is a particularly stark case in
point. Are they closing their N.C. plant because they’re
losing money, unable to compete, hamstrung by trade
policy and global competition? They’d like you to think
so; their corporate spokesman told the Asheville CitizenTimes that the plant closing was necessary to keep the
company competitive.
If you believe that, you might be shocked to learn that
Cooper Industries, Cooper Bussmann’s parent company,
has been profitable for years and even experienced a
28% increase in profits in 2003, earning a cool $274
million. Cooper’s Electrical Products segment, of which
Cooper Bussmann is a part, posted similar growth in
profitability in 2003.
Yet Cooper’s profitability only trickles down as far
as the executive suite, apparently. In 2002, Cooper CEO
H. J. Riley earned $8.6 million in compensation. He has
been consistently ranked among the best-paid executives
in America by Forbes magazine.
Cooper has pursued an aggressive strategy of relocating operations outside the United States. Last year
Cooper transferred more than 100 jobs directly from
Black Mountain, N.C. to Juarez, Mexico. The company
now boasts more plants located outside the U.S. than inside,
and that difference will grow larger with the new closings.
If you’ve read this far, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that Cooper Industries recently reincorporated itself — in Bermuda. This offshore tax dodge
helps them evade millions of dollars in taxes each year.
The corporate obsession with growth creates an
expectation that costs can decline and profits can rise every
year without end. This fairy-tale philosophy makes it
easier to abandon the workers that made these companies great in the first place.
A major effort should be made by government on
every level to retrain affected workers wherever possible
in western North Carolina. On a broader level, though,
the debate needs to change to reflect the real roots of the
problem of disappearing jobs.
Big business executives and their wealthy shareholders win big short-term cash, while the communities
that have supported them and made them wealthy are left
out in the cold. This winter, when western North Carolina
feels even more pain, they’ll have the unparalleled, shortterm greed of big business to thank for their troubles.
Source: Common Seense Foundation, common-sense.org
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2
Lawmakers Scuttle Environmental
Protection to Lure Industry
By Sue Sturgis
RALEIGH, Jan. 21 — In crafting an incentive deal to
encourage drug giant Merck to build a manufacturing
facility near Falls Lake, North Carolina lawmakers struck
a blow against a key state environmental law at the same
time the statute’s federal counterpart is under assault by
the Bush administration.
When North Carolina lawmakers last month approved
a $36 million taxpayer-supported incentive deal brokered
by the state Department of Commerce to encourage drug
giant Merck & Co. to build a vaccine manufacturing facility
near Falls Lake, they exempted the company from conducting an environmental review required by state law —
a move that shortchanges not only the environment but
also the democratic process.
“Commerce basically decided that SEPA was a pain in
the butt,” says attorney Dan Whittle of the North Carolina
office of Environmental Defense.
SEPA is the State Environmental Policy Act, a law on
North Carolina’s books since 1971. It requires state agencies to consider and publicly report on the environmental
effects of all activities that involve a state action, an
expenditure of public money or private use of public land,
and that have a potential environmental effect.
SEPA also promotes a more democratic process by giving
ordinary citizens the opportunity to review details of proposed projects, submit comments and suggest alternatives.
Merck’s SEPA exemption came to light in December
2003 when Democratic Gov. Mike Easley called an extra
session of the General Assembly to consider a bill granting
tax-supported incentives to Merck and tobacco giant R.J.
Reynolds.
“North Carolina has several pending economic development projects that necessitate this one-day extra session,”
Easley said in announcing the session. “We are poised to
bring some high quality jobs and industry to the state, but
we need to make some additional changes to secure them.”
Fast-Moving Train
Environmental advocates learned of the incentive bill’s
details shortly before the session opened, giving them little
time to organize a response.
“This was a fast-moving train,” says Sierra Club lobbyist David Knight. “Nobody had time to look at it.”
The bill proposed various incentives for Reynolds and
Merck, such as an export tax credit for Reynolds and a
sales tax rebate for Merck and other biotechnology/pharmaceutical firms.
Besides offering Merck the SEPA exemption, the
measure also gave the company $24 million in taxpayer
money to acquire and develop 256 acres of land in northeastern Durham County’s Treyburn Corporate Park. The
park lies near the Eno River about a mile from Falls Lake,
Raleigh’s main drinking water source.
The Merck plant will produce a combination vaccine
for measles, mumps and rubella and medication for chickenpox. The operation is expected to provide about 200 jobs.
State officials argue that the SEPA exemption was
necessary so Merck’s planned March 2004 construction start
would not be delayed.
But environmental advocates say SEPA environmental
assessments rarely result in projects being scuttled. They
note that the primary purpose of SEPA is to ensure that
state agencies are aware of any adverse environmental
impacts to air, water or public health associated with proposed projects so that those impacts can be considered in
the agencies’ final decision.
Some lawmakers tried to have Merck’s SEPA exemption struck from the incentives bill during the extra session.
Reps. Jennifer Weiss (D-Wake), Verla Insko (D-Orange) and
Jean Farmer-Butterfield (D-Edgecombe) won praise from
environmental advocates for their efforts.
But in the end, they lost to fellow lawmakers who felt
that jobs outweighed other considerations. The measure
passed with Merck’s SEPA exemption intact.
Big Pharma’s Political Clout
It should be noted that Merck is a major contributor to
North Carolina political campaigns. The company donated
$11,750 to 26 lawmakers during the 2002 election cycle,
according to the Institute on Money in State Politics (IMSP).
Weiss, Insko and Farmer-Butterfield were not among the
recipients of its largesse.
And Merck is hardly the only pharmaceutical company
investing in Raleigh politics. In the 2002 election cycle,
the pharmaceutical and health products industry donated
more than $160,000 to state politicians.
GlaxoSmithKline was by far the most generous corporate contributor at $47,750, according to the IMSP. It
was followed by Eli Lilly & Co. at $12,500 and Abbott
Laboratories with $12,350. Merck ranked fourth at $11,750,
followed by Johnson & Johnson at $11,000. Novartis, Pfizer,
the N.C. Pharmacy PAC, Glaxo Wellcome, Bayer Corp. and
Bristol Myers Squibb also contributed to state politicians’
campaigns.
There’s a similar pattern of giving in state legislatures
across the country, according to a recent IMSP analysis (PDF)
of pharmaceutical industry contributions over the last three
election cycles.
Asheville Community Resource Center is Being Evicted
ASHEVILLE, Feb. 8 — On Wednesday, February 4 the Asheville Community Resource Center (ACRC) received
an eviction notice over alleged unruly behavior during an event. This eviction came in the context of a concerted
effort to gentrify the street. Friendly neighbors had warned for the past few months of an effort underway to get
ACRC off the street.
The ACRC is an anti-authoritarian collective running a consensus-based community center in downtown
Asheville. They run an alternative reading room offering an extensive collection of radical literature, as well as a
venue for speaking events, live music, and independent artists (everything from Brazilian anarchist speakers to
bioregional network meetings to a David Rovics performance).
They also house a number of community groups, including the Bike Recyclery, Asheville Global Report,
Women and Transgender Health Project, Katuah Earth First!, Asheville Free School (with 15-20 home-school
kids), Prison Books Program, and Bountiful Cities (community gardens). This is a vital resource for the community, which cannot afford to lose it. Furthermore it is an important fight against the gentrification of Asheville.
In talking with the landlord it has become apparent that he is very nervous about this becoming a public issue,
and is already feeling pressed after reporters contacted him. The landlord said he would reply to ACRC on Monday,
Feb. 9. It is important to put the pressure on! Please make calls and send emails of support for the ACRC to:
Phone: 828-255-0032 Fax: 828-251-1036 Email: mgmtprop@aol.com
3
In all state legislatures combined, pharmaceutical
industry giving totaled $2.6 million during the 1998 election cycle, $4.36 million during the 2002 election cycle
and $6.25 million for the 2002 election cycle, the IMSP
found. The biggest pharmaceutical contributor was Pfizer
Inc., which along with its employees contributed $2.21
million. It was followed closely by the firms and employees of GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly and Co. and Merck, all
with contributions of $1.5 million or more.
In North Carolina, pharmaceutical industry contributions dwarf those of the pro-environment lobby, which
consists of the Sierra Club and the Conservation Council
of North Carolina. In the 2000 and 2002 election cycles
combined, those two groups together contributed a total of
$23,500 to candidates, according to a Democracy North
Carolina analysis.
Commerce Considers Itself Exceptional
Granting a SEPA exception for Merck sets a dangerous precedent, environmental advocates say, because now
every company considering locating an operation in North
Carolina will expect similar treatment.
“In this industrial recruitment game, a lot of times
states are engaged in a race to the bottom,” Whittle says.
The Merck case is not the first time the state’s industrial recruiters have tried to circumvent SEPA. In the late
1990s, a coalition of environmental groups successfully
sued the state after officials insisted that a SEPA assessment wasn’t required for the Nucor Corp. steel mill on the
Chowan River in Hertford County.
The legislature gave the Nucor project more than
$160 million in tax breaks. But in that case, it did not pass
a law holding that the environmental assessment would
not be necessary, as it did for Merck.
The Nucor mill was eventually built and has provided
more than 300 jobs in economically challenged northeastern
North Carolina. However, an investigation last month by
the Raleigh News & Observer found that the plant’s economic impact has not lived up to some people’s expectations.
Environmentalists point out that the state Commerce
Department takes the position that it is generally exempt
from SEPA requirements. While the law requires all state
departments to develop regulations for putting SEPA into
place, Commerce has declined to do so.
With the backing of the state attorney general, the
department maintains that SEPA does not apply to it because
tax incentives — the recruiting tool it typically uses, as
opposed to the upfront land purchase for Merck — don’t
constitute public money.
When most people hear that reasoning, “their jaws
drop,” Whittle says. “Taxes waived by most accounts are
money spent.”
Commerce spokespersons did not respond to requests
for comment.
Sue Sturgis is the editor and publisher of Raleigh Eco News
Source: North Carolina Independent Media Center
Triangle Free Press, January 2004
Stress Epidemic Strikes
American Forces in Iraq
NATIONAL
Agency Advises Employers How to
Duck Overtime Pay
By Dave Lindorff
When the Bush administration announced plans last year
for a controversial “reform” of New Deal-era wage and hour
regulations, it assured Congress and labor unions that the
proposal would make overtime pay available to some 1.3
million low-paid workers-even as it removed many highpaid employees from overtime protection.
It now turns out that the administration’s Department
of Labor (DOL), in a little-noticed report on the proposed
regulations published in the Federal Register, actually was
offering alert employers a set of instructions on how to
avoid paying overtime to many of those long-suffering
low-paid workers.
The document stated, for example, that employers could
raise employees’ pay to the new $22,100 annual salary
threshold, above which no overtime must be paid. If an
employee were earning $21,000 in base pay on an hourly
basis and was typically working four or five hours a week
of overtime at time-and-a-half, this option would represent
a big savings. The employee would continue to work 44or 45-hour weeks, but would no longer collect overtime
after the first 40 hours.
The report also suggested a tactic to convert an employee’s salary, upon which overtime would now have to be
paid for all work beyond a 40-hour week, to payment on
an hourly basis. This would reduce the hourly wage to a
level that, when overtime was added in, would equal the
old salary level. This strategy would have the effect of
negating the rise in the cutoff level for paying overtime to
salaried workers, which, under the regulations, went from
$13,000 a year to $22,100 a year.
“Most employers affected by the proposed rule would
be expected to choose the most cost-effective compensation
adjustment method,” the DOL document stated, adding
that because of this, the financial impact of the new regulations — despite the administration’s claim it would aid
lower-paid workers— could be “near zero.” The financial
benefit of the regulatory “reform” for low-paid workers
also would be “near zero.”
Yet those same regulations, expected to go into effect
in two months, will end overtime eligibility for some 650,000
higher-paid workers, while another 1.5-2.7 million other
higher-paid workers will be “more readily identified as
exempt” from overtime pay requirements, according to the
Department of Labor’s own analysis. Labor union studies
indicate that the number of workers who can expect to lose
out on overtime from the changes is closer to 8 million.
The proposed new rules don’t bar overtime pay for
higher-paid workers, which can be included, for example,
in union contracts; they simply establish pay thresholds
above which employers are not mandated to pay time-anda-half beyond a 40-hour week.
Suzanne Ffolkes, a spokeswoman with the AFL-CIO,
says the DOL study is “just an example of the administration’s
attempt to take away essential income from employees
who need overtime to make ends meet.” She noted that the
study does not bother to offer employees advice on how to
take advantage of the new regulations-for example, rejecting a change in pay from hourly to salaried or the offer of
a minimal raise that would result in a net loss of income.
“We think it is outrageous that the Bush administration would be giving instructions to employers on how to
avoid paying overtime to low-income workers, especially
when they told Congress this bill was designed to help
more low-wage workers become eligible for overtime,”
says Alan Reuther, legislative director for the United Auto
Workers (UAW).
A Labor Department representative insisted that the
March 2003 report was not meant to serve as a set of
instructions to employers on how to avoid paying overtime. “We were required to identify to the regulated community the impact of the proposed regulations,” she said.
Added Ed Frank, another department spokesman: “We’re
not saying anybody should do any of this.”
But U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) isn’t convinced.
He is a critic of the proposed rules change and calls the
DOL report “a gut punch to American workers.”
Harkin says the study is “proof positive that this
administration is dead set on taking away overtime from 8
million Americans and denying even the lowest wage
workers overtime protection.”
Last fall, Harkin and most Democratic senators, along
with a number of Republicans like Pennsylvania Sen.
Arlen Specter, managed to include the Harkin Amendment
in the annual omnibus appropriations bill, which would
have barred the Labor Department from making any rules
change reducing overtime eligibility. Under pressure from
the Bush administration, however, the measure was deleted
in conference, where negotiations are dominated by leaders of the majority party in both houses of Congress.
The UAW’s Reuther notes that the omnibus appropriations bill, reported out of the House-Senate conference
and already approved by the House, awaits Senate action
on January 20. “We’ve called on Democratic senators to
filibuster it unless they put the Harkin Amendment back
into the bill,” he says.
Source: inthesetimes.org
Health Care Benefits at Heart of Union Struggle
By David Bacon
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 16 — Today Mark Norton is one of
70,000 supermarket workers forced on strike, or locked out,
in southern California. Soon he may be one of hundreds of
thousands of workers in other unions, from hotel room
cleaners to hospital workers and nurses, who are going to
face the same predicament, threatening to make 2004 a year
of massive strikes and labor wars. The number one economic issue is health care.
Across the United States, the system for financing
health care benefits for union workers is breaking down, as
managed care drives the cost of medical insurance through
the roof. Some employers, like Safeway, which owns the
Von’s store where Norton works, can pay the increases
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from rising profits, but they won’t.
More than 40 million people in the country have no
health insurance. Protecting his insurance has already cost
Norton three months on the picket line.
Norton went to work for Von’s 18 years ago. When the
strike started last fall, he had become a grocery manager
with wages that could support a family, in an industry
where that has become a rarity. Unionized supermarket
workers have been able to maintain a better standard of living than most, yet over three-quarters of the baggers,
checkers, and stock clerks have trouble accumulating the
work hours they need to survive. When Norton walked out
of Von’s on Oct. 11, it was over Safeway’s demands to
make life even harder.
The chain demanded for the first time that current
employees begin paying for their health insurance. “They
said they were just asking for $5 a week, or $15 for family
coverage. When we did the numbers, it turns out it could
cost as much as $95 a week by the end of the contract,” he
explains. The average weekly wage for a Los Angeles supermarket worker is $312.
In each of the last three years, the premiums charged
by private health insurance plans have gone up 15 percent;
the predicted future rise is 12-14 percent annually.
Safeway wants to cap its contribution, and leave workers
paying for those hikes.
More alarmingly, Safeway is proposing to hire new
workers at lower wages, with an insurance plan most wouldn’t be able to afford. Safeway says it wants to pay $1.35 an
4
hour for their medical care. The company pays about $5 an
hour for its current employees. Few new hires will be able
to pay the difference in cost between the company’s contributions and the actual premium. And the premiums will
rise in the existing plan as the workers it covers grow older
with new hires being left out of the plan. Workers like
Norton also fear that once these new “cheaper” employees
come in, people like him will be weeded out.
“I’d like to ask Steve Burd (Safeway’s CEO) at what
point in his life he stopped caring about people and only
about money,” Norton asks angrily. “How can he tell his
stockholders that putting 80,000 people on the street is an
investment in their future?”
Once Norton and his co-workers struck, the two other
large grocery chains in southern California, Albertson’s
and Ralph’s (a division of Kroger Stores), locked out their
own workers in a common front with Safeway.
The three grocery chains claim they need the concessions in order to compete with the world’s largest corporation, Wal-Mart, with its lower wages and benefits. Yet most
southern California Wal-Marts don’t sell groceries, and
even if the company did build 40 “super centers” throughout the state, it would only gain 1% of the grocery market,
compared with the 60% held by the big three.
Northern California’s 50,000 supermarket workers are
watching with utmost concern — their contract is up in
September. “We certainly expect this fight to be on our
doorstep then,” says Rich Benson, president of UFCW
UNIONS continued on page 6
In addition (to chronic stress)
… no one knows when they
will be going home. Photos:
brandonblog, bringthemhomenow
By Peter Beaumont
Jan. 25 — The war’s over, but
the suicide rate is high and the
army is riddled with acute
psychiatric problems.
Up to one in five of
the American military personnel in Iraq will suffer from
post-traumatic stress disorder, say senior forces’ medical
staff dealing with the psychiatric fallout of the war.
This revelation follows the disclosure last month that
more than 600 US servicemen and women have been
evacuated from the country for psychiatric reasons since
the conflict started last March.
At least 22 US soldiers have killed themselves — a
rate considered abnormally high — mostly since President
George Bush declared an end to major combat on 1 May
last year, These suicides have led to a high-level Department of Defence investigation, details of which will be
disclosed in the next few weeks.
Although the overall suicide rate is running at an
average of 13.5 per 100,000 troops, compared with a US
army average of 10.5 to 11 per 100,000 in recent years, the
incidence of the vast majority of suicides in the period
after 1 May is statistically significant, accounting for
about 7 per cent of all service deaths in Iraq.
The same, say experts, is true for psychiatric evacuations,
the majority of which have taken place after that date, a
fact confirmed in recent interviews by Colonel Theodore
Nam, chief of in-patient psychiatry services at the Walter
Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington. He says no
psychiatric cases at all were evacuated during the major
combat. High levels of psychiatric casualties are expected,
despite the US armed forces making an unprecedented
effort to deal with stress and psychiatric disorders during
service in Iraq.
At the heart of the concern is that Iraq may repeat the
experience of Vietnam, which experienced low levels of
psychiatric problems during service there in comparison
with the two world wars, but very high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among veterans later.
According to Captain Jennifer Berg, the chairman of
psychiatric services at the Naval Medical Centre in San Diego,
whose staff see US Marines returning from Iraq, military
psychiatrists have been warned to expect the disorder to
occur in 20 per cent of the servicemen and women in Iraq.
Although Berg believes some of the problems already
reported — including the suicides and psychiatric evacuations — relate to people’s experiences during the invasion
rather than its aftermath, she concedes that the forces’
present conditions of service in Iraq are producing their
own problems.
“I think during the combat phase there was a huge
outpouring of support at home. The soldiers were also
trained and ramped up for their mission. There has been a
change since then. There is a feeling among troops there
that they have fallen off the public screen. And the longer
people are there, the more we are seeing people come forward with stress reactions.”
Berg believes operating conditions for the “nationbuilding phase” of the Iraq campaign are creating their
Chemical Industry Given Private
Access to EPA
Jan. 23 — A lawsuit filed last week asserts that the Bush
Administration is allowing a special task force from the
chemical industry to lobby secretly and illegally inside the
Environmental Protection Agency. The task force aims to
circumvent current protections for endangered species. If
successful, it will be easier for the industry to gain approval
for the use of certain pesticides.
The lawsuit alleges that the industry group, representating 14 agrochemical companies, is meeting regularly
behind closed doors with EPA officials in violation of the
Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). Federal “sunshine” laws require that such meetings be open to members
of the public.
The industry strategy, according to internal documents
obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, is to
eliminate the role of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
NOAA Fisheries, whose biologists currently serve as oversight experts as to whether a pesticide poses a risk to wildlife.
It appears the industry is succeeding. Last year the EPA,
which has no measures in place to protect most endangered
animals and plants, began a process whereby the agency
could assume full control over these decisions with little
or no oversight from federal biologists.
“It is contrary to our American values for the Bush
Administration to give the pesticide industry a secret insider
role so they can weaken protections for endangered species,”
says Patti Goldman of Earthjustice, which filed the lawsuit
on January 15 in Seattle. Other plaintiffs include the Natural
Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological
Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Washington Toxics
Coalition, and Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to
Pesticides. The lawsuit asks that EPA be ordered to comply
with the open-meeting rules.
The industry task force includes Monsanto, Dupont Ag
Products, Dow AgroSciences and UniRoyal Chemical Co.
The group, known as the FIFRA Endangered Species Task
Force, was set up in 2000 to help research data on the
locations of endangered species. But under the Bush
Administration it has taken on a mission to alter the rules
of the Endangered Species Act.
At the industry’s behest, EPA is also considering rule
changes that would allow greater risks to wildlife from
pesticides before any expert review is initiated. Another
change would restrict the type of evidence that can be
introduced to determine the level of risk. A third change
would allow EPA officials simply to ignore conclusions of
expert scientists from other federal agencies.
The rule changes are expected to be announced soon,
but already the EPA is authorizing the use of pesticides
that Fish and Wildlife Service experts say can cause harm
to endangered species.
own kinds of mental health problems — not least the everpresent threat to US vehicles and troops of the resistance’s
home-made mines. These are one of the main causes of
death among coalition troops in the period after 1 May.
“In comparison with the combat phase, what we are now
seeing are conditions of chronic stress which the troops
are experiencing every day. It is a combination of danger,
boredom and sleep deprivation, and the knowledge that
they are a long way from home,” said Berg. “In addition
people are no longer sure when or what the end will be.
No one knows when they will be going home. They are
also working in an environment where the people they
came to help are very hostile.”
Already the cases that such doctors as Berg are seeing
have what she describes as “classic reactions, the basic
symptoms of combat stress.”
The psychiatrists have seen symptoms ranging from
disturbed sleep, heart palpitations, nausea and diarrhoea to
more obvious behavioural problems, such as forgetful-ness,
aggression, irrational anger and feelings of alienation.
From the present period of chronic stress to the personnel, the doctors are expecting symptoms of depression
and generalised anxiety to develop. These may be exacerbated by underlying existing traumas. The most pronounced
cases have already ended in suicide.
Among them was Army Specialist Joseph Suell, who
wrote a last letter home to his mother before he died of an
overdose of the painkiller Tylenol on 16 June. Suell complained to her of the conditions he was living in, without
electricity, water to bathe in, as well as a fear that he would
be killed by an Iraqi sniper.
He complained how badly he missed his wife and
daughters during a year-long posting to South Korea before
he was sent to Kuwait and then on to Iraq. He had been
granted compassionate leave.
As he prepared for war it was clear to his family he
was in trouble, his worried wife even intervening to try to
secure his return.
Suell’s is one of the few suicides to have been reported
in the American media. The Pentagon has refused to say
which of its “non-hostile fatalities” have been self-inflicted.
The military psychiatrists are puzzled by the suicide
rate in Iraq, saying that it makes little sense in comparison
with those in past conflicts.
The accepted wisdom in military psychiatry is that
the level of suicides — far from increasing during wars —
drops as the survival instinct kicks in among the personnel
in the conflict zone. Just two suicides were recorded among
US personnel during the entire Gulf war in the Nineties.
What is also unusual about the rate in Iraq, in comparison
with Vietnam, Korea and the Second World War, is that
everyone serving in the all-volunteer forces has already
been screened for their psychological suitability. They have
also been briefed on combat stress and trained to counter
any suicidal feelings, following a rash of military suicides
which embarrassed the Pentagon in the late nineties.
Source: The Observer, Guardian UK
Source: Bushgreenwatch.org
5
Triangle Free Press, February 2004
Uninsured Face Debt, Even Prison,
for Health Care Costs
By The Staff of Democracy Now!
Jan. 8 — What do the Emir of Kuwait and the working poor
of the United States have in common? Not much, except
when it comes to paying for health care in the United
States. They all pay the highest price: up to 500% more
than the hospital receives from insured patients.
That’s because hospitals negotiate discounts with big
institutions like insurance companies, HMOs or the government that require payment of only a fraction of the listed
charges. Those institutions have substantial bargaining power
and can guarantee hospitals a certain number of patients.
Uninsured people, on the other hand, have no bargaining power
and are left to fend for themselves once they get their bills.
Jennifer Kankiewicz was rushed to New York’s Beth
Israel Hospital in July 2002 for an emergency appendectomy and was hospitalized for two days. “I waited through
a day’s worth of not being able to get out of bed because I
didn’t have health insurance,” recalls Kankiewicz. “The next
day, a friend drove me to the hospital in an emergency and
we went to the closest hospital we knew of.”
Kankiewicz had an emergency appendectomy. “They
provided great service,” she says. The hospital “reassured
me that I could apply for Medicaid assistance. So I thought,
maybe Medicaid would help me with the $24,000 that it
cost me.”
Though Kankiewicz is poor, she was not poor enough.
She was denied Medicaid assistance because she makes
$19,000 a year. In order to qualify for Medicaid,
Kankiewicz either needed to be pregnant, disabled or earn
less than $350 a week. Though she was able to convince
her surgeon to slightly reduce the charges, she still faces
over $19,000 in hospital bills, more than her annual salary.
She says she is being billed by six separate billing groups
and, unlike the big insurance companies, Kankiewicz has no
negotiating power with the hospital or its collection agencies.
“It’s like sending a guppy out to the sharks,” says
Elisabeth Benjamin, the supervising attorney of the Health
Law Unit at the Legal Aid Society in New York. “It’s just
not fair.”
Several states operate a funding pool for hospitals to offset the money they spend on charity care as well as bad debt.
In New York, these funds total almost $1 billion a year.
Benjamin is the author of a new Legal Aid report
called “State Secret: How Government Fails To Ensure
That Uninsured And Underinsured Patients Have Access
To State Charity Funds.” The report alleges that none of
UNIONS continued from page 4
Local 870. “That’s why our local unions fully support the
efforts of unions in southern California. Safeway has contracts from Virginia, to Colorado, Washington, and Nevada.
This is a watershed moment, not just for the UFCW, but
for the whole labor movement.”
Norton and other strikers extended their picket lines
to other areas of the state, where they say they’ve found a
sympathetic public. But solidarity also has another source.
833-0226
LOCATED IN
RALEIGH’S FIVE
POINTS
Triangle Free Press, February 2004
the 22 hospitals surveyed in New York City have a process
that would let poor or uninsured patients apply for the
hundreds of millions of dollars in state government funds
intended to help pay for hospital care for the needy, despite
the fact that they are all receiving between $4-$60 million
annually in charity care funds from the state. As a result,
patients who are uninsured and have limited financial
resources are forced to pay inflated prices for their care.
“An average consumer that might want to call a hospital and find out what the charity care policy is, forget it,”
says Benjamin. “What we found was at all 22 [hospitals],
no one had a way to actually get the state money applied
to your case.”
In Kankiewicz’s case, according to Benjamin, Beth
Israel receives $28 million a year for charity or bad debt cases.
But rather than establishing a process to inform patients
about applying for this money, Beth Israel made Kankiewicz
go through the process of applying for Medicaid.
“I could have told Jennifer in 30 seconds, she wasn’t
going to be eligible for Medicaid,” says Benjamin. “For
her to have gone to a fair hearing [on Medicaid eligibility]
on her own was a waste of time.”
Kankiewicz says that when she initially spoke to the
collections department at Beth Israel, they asked her why
she chose the most expensive hospital if she was uninsured.
“Honestly, I didn’t understand that I was a consumer, that
I had to shop,” Kankiewicz says. “I wasn’t making a decision
at the time. I rushed to the hospital that I knew where it was.”
Like Kankiewicz, many uninsured patients end up
with huge medical bills and no way of paying them.
Hospitals then hound them for payment using collection
agencies and lawyers, who employ such methods as filing
lawsuits, slapping liens on homes, seizing bank accounts
and garnishing wages to extract payments. Some hospitals
now rank among America’s most aggressive debt collectors.
“[Patients] don’t know they have been sued because
the collection attorneys and the collection agent hired by
the hospitals are voracious,” says Benjamin. “They claim
to serve people, but in fact they have never served anybody with court papers. The next thing my clients know,
their bank accounts have been taken.”
But for some people, it can get worse than that.
A Return to Debtors Prisons
Hospitals in several states have actually had patients
arrested and jailed if they are unable to pay their debts.
This legal tactic is chillingly known as body attachment.
“We’re expecting a major confrontation with hotel chains
over health care costs when our contract comes up this
summer,” says Mike Casey, president of the Hotel and
Restaurant Employees, Local 2 in San Francisco.
California labor took a step towards a longer term
solution to this problem, by pushing legislation this fall to
begin taking healthcare costs. Just before being recalled,
ex-Governor Gray Davis signed a bill, SB-2, which
requires large employers to provide healthcare coverage
for their employees. Another bill to establish a singlepayer system, using the money now spent on health insurance premiums to extend care to all Californians, was
introduced but didn’t come up for a vote.
Unions, which backed the more limited SB-2, will
have their hands full this year just hanging onto it. Newly
elected Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is collecting
millions in corporate campaign contributions and promises
a ballot initiative to repeal SB-2. But if unions and communities organize a coalition powerful enough to defeat
him, the momentum could not only preserve SB-2, but
also put single-payer on the agenda.
Source: Pacific News Service
6
“Body attachment is basically a warrant for arrest,”
says Claudia Lennhoff, executive director of Champaign
County Health Care Consumers in Illinois. She says that if
a patient misses a court date, that they may not even know
they have, the attorneys for the hospitals or collection agencies
can ask the judge to issue a warrant for the patient’s arrest.
“They can go out immediately and find that person or
it can just kind of be out there and then if the person gets
pulled over, for example, for having a taillight out or
speeding or something, it pops up, and then shows a warrant for arrest and the person gets brought in, and then
they get incarcerated,” says Lennhoff.
Take the case of Jim Bean, a musician in Urbana,
Illinois. More than a decade ago, he received treatment at
the Carle Foundation Hospital, the primary teaching hospital of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana,
for a gunshot wound after a failed suicide attempt. He
attended 13 court dates to answer to his $7,718 hospital
bill. But then Bean missed a hearing, which he says he did
not know was scheduled. The hospital asked the court for
an arrest warrant.
“They put out this body attachment that I found out
about the next day. I went and turned myself in,” recalls
Bean. “I went to find out what was going on, and they told me
to go across the street to the county sheriff’s office where
I turned myself in. I was jailed, and I was put into general
population at the satellite facility here until my brother
could come up with 10% of $3,500 to bail me out of jail.”
Bean says the next time he went to court, the attorneys for Carle Hospital asked that Bean’s bail money be
applied toward his debt to the hospital. The judge approved
the request. “It was just a really quick way for them to collect $350,” he says. “I had no say in that.”
In an interview with Democracy Now!, Robert
Tonkinson, chief financial officer for Carle Foundation
Hospital, said the hospital would not end its practice of
having patients arrested.
“We are exercising more review, and more care and
more direction over that practice,” says Tonkinson. But he
says, “The reason we’re not willing to say that we’ll never,
never use that practice again is because we do feel a very
strong obligation to be a good steward of the resources we
have.” He adds that sometimes having people arrested is
“the only option left in order to get the information we
need to see if these people qualify for our charity programs
or in assistance in other ways is to pursue that process.”
Bean has been dealing with his debt to Carle Hospital
for more than 12 years. He says he has made payments
totaling $1,340. “When I started making those payments,
my bill was $7,718.23,” he says. “My bill today is
$10,620.46. None of the money that I have paid has been
applied to the debt whatsoever, it’s all in interest charges.”
Legal Aid’s Benjamin says that Bean’s case is part of
a national trend. “In New York State, for example, the collection agents charge 9% interest,” she says. “So, even though
the federal interest rate is 1%, and most people can get
mortgages for 6%, the hospital industry is charging 9%, at
least, on average.”
Lennhoff of the Champaign County Health Care
Consumers says that practices like arresting people who
can’t afford to pay the exorbitant costs of health could
have far reaching implications. “It creates a bad dynamic
in our community, where people become very afraid of
getting healthcare because they fear that they will be jailed
if they cannot pay the bill,” she says. “They are treated as
a criminals and that’s outrageous.”
Source: Democracy Now!, a daily national radio/TV
newshour. Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill, Sharif Abdel
Kouddous and Mike Burke compiled this report.
INTERNATIONAL
Washington Trades Human Rights
for Oil in Azerbaijan
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 — The oil-rich nation of Azerbaijan,
eagerly courted by the Bush administration, is suffering its
worst repression since it became an independent state—
after the Soviet collapse more than a decade ago—according
to a new report released today by New York-based Human
Rights Watch (HRW).
The 55-page report, “Crushing Dissent: Repression
Violence and Azerbaijan’s Elections,” details hundreds of
arbitrary arrests, widespread beatings and torture, and politically motivated firings of opposition activists and supporters following October 15 presidential elections widely
denounced as unfair and fraudulent by Western and other
observers.
Rumsfeld personally congratulated the younger Aliev
on his election victory... Washington has been interested in
Azerbaijan as a major future supplier of oil for the past
decade.
The elections confirmed Ilham Aliev as the nation’s
new ruler. He is the son of Heidar Aliev, a former top KGB
official and Kremlin adviser, who became president two
years after Azerbaijan became independent in 1991. The
elder Aliev died last month while receiving medical treatment in the United States.
“Azerbaijan is experiencing its gravest human rights
crisis of the past ten years,” said Rachel Denber, acting director of HRW’s Europe and Central Asia Division. “The government must take immediate steps to end the repression.”
The report, based on hundreds of interviews with victims and witnesses in 13 towns and cities during and
immediately after the elections and subsequent testimonies
and press reports, found that repression has only intensi-
fied over the last several months.
It also accused the U.S. and other western governments
of responding to the elections and the crackdown that followed them by sending muted and contradictory messages,
capped by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s visit
in December. Rumsfeld personally congratulated the younger
Aliev on his election victory, but otherwise refused to
make any comment on the political situation.
“The international community needs to take a strong
and consistent stance against the rising tide of abuse,” said
Denber. “In light of President Bush’s recent statements on
democracy in neighboring countries in the Middle East,
U.S. inaction on Azerbaijan is particularly troubling.”
Despite its vast oil wealth, Azerbaijan remains a poor
country with an annual per capita income well below
$4,000, and about half the population living below the
poverty line. The country lost part a key part of its territory,
Nagorno-Karabakh, in a fierce conflict with neighboring
Armenia in the early 1990s that was suspended by a ceasefire in 1994 but has yet to be fully resolved.
Corruption under the Alievs has reportedly been rampant, particularly with the investment of billions of dollars
by foreign oil companies eager to exploit the country’s
energy resources, found primarily in and around the capital,
Baku, and beneath Azerbaijan’s territorial waters in the
Caspian Sea.
Washington has been interested in Azerbaijan as a
major future supplier of oil for the past decade. It has
played a leading role in promoting the Baku-TbilisiCeyhan pipeline that will carry oil from the Caspian
through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey’s easternmost
Mediterranean port, a controversial project designed to
ensure to circumvent Russia and Iran, even though using
existing grids would be a much cheaper transport method.
Azerbaijan was quick to offer assistance to Washington after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and
the Pentagon, and military ties between the two nations
have grown steadily. Beginning in 2002, Bush waived a
ban on security assistance to Azerbaijan that was first
imposed during its war with Armenia.
Indeed, Rumsfeld’s recent trip there was aimed at
intensifying military cooperation and assessing Baku’s
willingness to host U.S. military facilities. Washington has
also expressed interest in providing Azerbaijan with training and equipment, including a Coast Guard cutter, to permit its navy to patrol its waters.
But some analysts say the growing coziness with the
Aliev government carries serious risks, particularly if
repression and corruption are not soon curbed. The fact
that it had to resort to fraud to ensure its election victory,
according to this view, suggests that the government is
deeply unpopular and could be destabilized.
“A failure to fully promote democracy will ensure
that the profits from oil production will end up in the
Swiss bank accounts of corrupt leaders and government
officials,” warned Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) in a recent
article in which he argued that Washington faces similar
challenges throughout the Caucasus region. Some days
later, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze was ousted in a popular uprising.
While the Georgian crisis was resolved in a free election swept by a pro-U.S. opposition, the October election
in Azerbaijan was anything but free, according to HRW
and other independent analysts.
HRW found that the government prevented many
AZERBAIJAN, continued on page 8
Iraqi Women Reject the
Yoke of Sharia
By Hélène Despic-Popovic
Jan. 23 — They’re between thirty and fifty years old, their
gait assured, their voices forceful, and above all, their heads
bare of the veil, which, thanks to the lack of security, has
invaded Baghdad streets. Muslims, Kurds, and Christians,
they have often paid dearly—by prison or exile—for their
freedom and don’t intend to abdicate it to the benefit of
their fathers, husbands, or brothers at the first shot across
the bow. So, in Baghdad’s streets where all those formerly
deprived of a voice continue to assemble, some to demand
employment, others, lodging, these women are demonstrating to denounce the Provisional Government’s Decision
137, which repeals the family law that has been in force
since 1959—considered one of the most progressive in
any Muslim country—and entrusts family business to
clerics, who will rule according to Sharia.
“We know there’s no chance this decree will be applied
because in order for that to happen, it must be ratified by
the American Administrator, Paul Bremer. But he won’t
always be there and we’ll have a parliament which could
well make the same decisions. So we decided to make it
understood that nothing will happen without a dialogue with
us,” explains Selma Jabo, former exile and et ex-communist,
a militant volunteer for the El-Amal (hope) Association,
who wears her fifty years with elegance.
The Right of Divorce
The women “expected an improvement on the 1959
law, not a reversal,” explains her Kurdish comradely sister
Chimene Bajilan, 33 years old and presently Assistant
Prosecutor for a northern region of Iraq. Adopted after the
departure of the British colonizers, this law was the only
one in the Muslim world that gave women the right to
divorce their husbands. “The man has to pay the household expenses for three years. The woman has custody of
the children until they are fifteen years old. Then the children can decide whether to stay with their mother or leave
for their father,” details Selma. The 1959 law gave women
a long maternity leave, prohibited repudiation, gave
women a share in inheritance and made polygamy difficult. Instead of the four wives authorized by Islam, a man
could have two, but only on condition that the first wife
agree.
In this country where the rise in religious feeling
since Saddam Hussein’s fall is palpable, it’s difficult for
women to declare hostility to Islamic law. So they juggle,
looking for accommodations that satisfy God, men’s
pride, and their own interests. “The 1959 law,” Chimene
explains, “is also based on Sharia, but it took whatever
was most favorable from each of the five Islamic doctrines
practiced in Iraq. For example, in the 1959 law, the woman
SHARIA, continued on page 9
7
Triangle Free Press, February 2004
West Ignores Zimbabwe Famine
By William Reed
Jan. 08 — Western powers are using financial neglect to
decimate African nations in their disfavor. In an effort to
get the head of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, they
have forced food aid to 2.6 million starving Zimbabweans
to be slashed in half. Their programs to give Mugabe
“payback” for reclaiming land whites obtained during the
colonist era have hit a new low in their lack of funding for
food for Southern Africans.
The United States and British governments are using
the United Nations agency for worldwide food distribution,
the World Food Program (WFP), as a weapon against
Mugabe and his country. The Rome-based WFP became a
U.N. agency for emergency and development projects in 1963.
Over the years, the WFP has invested $27.8 billion
and 43 million metric tons of food to combat hunger, promote economic and social development and provide relief
assistance in world emergencies — $12.5 billion of WFP’s
budget is in Sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, the WFP is
trying to feed 6.5 million hungry people in Zimbabwe,
Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Lesotho and Swaziland.
A lack of funding from the U.S., U.K. and other
donors has caused WFP a $161.3 million funding shortfall
and forced the agency to cut the amount of food going to
hungry Zimbabweans this year.
Because of drought conditions in the area, the WFP is
calling for urgent cash donations to fund its Southern
African food programs. WFP officials say the situation will
only deteriorate if more funding does not arrive soon, since
need is generally highest during the first months of the
year before the annual harvest. Four million Zimbabweans
will need food aid early this year.
Starving people to get them to topple the head of state
isn’t new to Western powers. People after Mugabe’s head
boast that Zimbabwe was once Southern Africa’s “bread
basket” and had huge and efficient farms that produced
enough food that there were surpluses for sale abroad.
They say the reason food production has declined and left
millions without food is because Mugabe seized those
white-owned farms in 2000.
They say Zimbabwe used to grow more than 1.8 million tons of grain to feed people and livestock in Africa,
and Mugabe’s government’s confiscation of 90 percent of
the productive land from white farmers had been a major
cause of the current crisis. They cite that this summer —
the fourth since President Mugabe confiscated most whiteowned farms — the harvest is down to a third of normal
production, the lowest in more than 50 years.
The United States, Britain and the European Union
say they’ve been providing more than 90 percent of funds
used to feed Zimbabweans. But, since it began seeking donations in July for the current crisis, the WFP says donors
contributed about $161 million of
and insufficient donations threata total of $311 million needed to
en to worsen hunger problems
even as the harvest season begins.
continue food aid at current levels
There is enough food in the
through June 2004. The United
world today for every man,
States gave about $80 million,
woman and child to lead healthy
with the European Union and
and productive lives. Yet, hunger
Britain, Sweden and Australia conafflicts one out of every seven
tributing another $56 million.
people on earth — with the greatThe remaining $20 million has
come from about 30 governments.
est impact in Africa. If concerned
Unless more donations toward
people continue to wait on Westthe WFP goal of $311 million
ern governments to do the right
arrive, the agency says over 7 milthing in and for Africa, hunger
Photo source: AP
lion Southern Africans will not have
and death there will continue.
the strength of purpose to plant
While African Americans concrops for next year. But, with European publications blar- tinue to pursue political correctness for Africa, they also need
ing out that “foreign food suppliers are showing fatigue at to prompt their churches and groups to make practical donawhat most see as a crisis brought on by the government” tions such as cash, food — such as flour, beans, oil, salt and
it’s going to take others stepping up to the plate.
sugar — and basic items necessary to grow, store and cook
Aid officials say supplies for Zimbabwe — staples like food to Africans via the WFP by forwarding gifts through
cooking oil — will completely run out in early January the U.N. headquarters in New York.
2004, and those shortages could soon extend to the other
Southern African countries, where a combination of drought
Source: San Francisco Bay View
By Eric Margolis
AZERBAIJAN, continued from page 7
opposition candidates from campaigning effectively—
often through police brutality, arbitrary arrests, and intimidation—during the election campaign. On election day it
carried out a well-organized campaign of fraud to ensure
victory for Ilham Aliev with some 75 percent of the official vote. The fact that the fraud was carried out in front of
the largest election-monitoring team ever deployed to
Azerbaijan only increased the frustration of both the opposition and the observers.
Immediately after the election, protest demonstrations
were met by “brutal and excessive force” carried out by the
police, as a result of which at least 300 protestors suffered
serious injuries and one was killed. Azerbaijani authorities
have so far refused to carry out an investigation of the police
violence, let alone punish any of the security forces involved.
In the weeks following the election, the authorities
used the violence as a pretext for rounding up nearly 1,000
people—among them, opposition leaders and activists,
activists of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) perceived as supporting the opposition, journalists, and election
officials and observers who challenged the fraud. Those
detained routinely suffered beatings by police, while opposition leaders held at the Organized Crime Unit of the
Interior Ministry were tortured by electric shock, severe
beating, and threats that they would be raped.
As of last week, more than 100 detainees remain in
custody and, if convicted of various crimes with which they
By Douglas Davis
have been charged, may face up to 12 years in prison.
More than 100 opposition supporters and their family
members have been fired from their jobs, while opposition
activists throughout the country are subject to constant
harassment by the policy.
“The government of Azerbaijan is attempting to crush
the opposition with few attempts to hide it,” charges the
HRW report, which calls on the government to immediately release all of those detained for political reasons and
thoroughly investigate acts of torture and other official
misconduct. But it stressed that the role of the international community, particularly Western powers, could play a
critical role.
The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly is
scheduled to debate Azerbaijan’s compliance with the
Council’s human rights requirements—an opportunity,
according to HRW for European governments to express
stronger concern. “The Assembly needs to adopt a strong
resolution making clear that Azerbaijan’s credentials are at
risk unless the government remedies the situation,” said
Denber. Azerbaijan was admitted to the Council in
February, 2001.
Washington also needs to convey a clearer message,
according to HRW, which recognized the Aliev’s election
victory, even as U.S. observers sent by the administration
denounced them as a “sham.”
Source: OneWorld.net
War Talk Dominates World Social Forum
MUMBAI, INDIA, Jan. 22 — War dominated the huge
World Social Forum, which ended yesterday in India’s
financial capital Mumbai, after six days of conferences
and protests.
More than 100 000 delegates, including a strong South
African contingent, attended the forum.
The often-strident tone against the United States was
set at the opening on January 16, when Indian author Arundhati
Roy said: “For the first time in history, a single empire
with an arsenal of weapons that could obliterate the world
in an afternoon, has complete, unipolar, economic and
military hegemony.”
“It uses different weapons to break open different
markets. There isn’t a country on God’s earth that is not
caught in the cross hairs of the American cruise missile
and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) checkbook.”
Listening intently in almost unanimous approval were
Triangle Free Press, February 2004
Bush and Blair Behind Khadaffi’s WMD Sham
about 100 000 people who cheered and waved anti-US
banners at the sprawling Nesco grounds in Mumbai’s
northern suburb Goregaon.
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi called
on delegates to pressure their governments to rethink relations with the US.
Iraqi writer Abdul Amir Al-Rekaby said: “War is a
political weapon. The war against Iraq is not an accident,
it is not an exception. If the US wins in Iraq, it will affect
the whole world.”
The futility of war, the danger of nuclear proliferation
and the need for peace were constant themes at the forum,
where organizers banned multinational brands like Coke
and Pepsi, and worked on Linux, a free operating-system
alternative to Microsoft.
Roy said, “The confidence with which he (George
Bush) disregarded overwhelming public opinion should
8
be a lesson to us all.
“Bush believes that Iraq can be occupied and colonised—as Afghanistan has been, as Tibet has been, as Chechnya
is being, as East Timor once was, and as Palestine still is.”
At more than 1200 workshops, public meetings, conferences and cultural events, delegates dwelt on topics as
varied as themselves—the impact of globalization on
women, religious fundamentalism, the right to food and
water, sustainable development, gender equality, militarism,
racism and economic security.
The agriculture policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the US and the European Union were severely
criticised.
India’s Roy said it was the failed WTO talks last
September in Mexico where “we learned the importance
of globalizing resistance.”
Source: The Star, South Africa
MIAMI, Jan. 11 — Just before New Year, President
George Bush and Britain’s PM Tony Blair staged what the
French call a “coup de theatre.” That’s Gallic for pulling a
political rabbit from one’s hat.
The rabbit in question was none other than Libya’s
Col. Moammar Khadaffi, once reviled as the world’s most
dangerous man and America’s Enemy Number One.
After eight months of secret negotiations with
Washington and London, the eccentric Libyan strongman
grandly proclaimed his nation was abandoning its weapons
of mass destruction(WMD).
Bush, his neo-conservative supporters, and the U.S. media
crowed that Khadaffi’s surrender confirmed the wisdom of
invading Afghanistan and Iraq. The evil Khadaffi had been
cowed into giving up his arsenal of deadly WMD.
Other “rogue” states would hasten to follow Libya’s lead.
But on closer inspection, there was much less to this
drama than met the eye. Khadaffi, in fact, had no viable WMD,
contrary to fevered claims by neo-con propagandists.
According to UN inspectors and European intelligence
sources, Libya had only small amounts of World War I
technology mustard gas, a primitive battlefield weapon.
It had no biological or nuclear weapons. Libya had no
means of delivering WMD beyond some rusting Scud-B
missiles with only a 180-mile range.
Libya possessed an assortment of nuclear junk: a small
research reactor, some lab equipment, and a few inoperative,
third-hand centrifuges bought from Pakistan or Malaysia.
There is no sign, at least so far, of any capability to
make or deliver WMD.
When I was in Libya interviewing Col. Khadaffi, I found
there was not a single elevator repairman in the country.
Bakers had to be imported from Egypt to make bread.
Seventy percent of Libya’s military equipment was broken
down. In short, tiny, backward Libya, with a population of
only five million, had no military capability.
However, in the 1980s, Libya certainly did fund all sorts
of violent revolutionary groups and was implicated in the
bombings of French and U.S. airliners.
After 17 years of punishing sanctions against Libya,
Khadaffi sought to improve relations with the West by
paying reparations for the airliners, and handing over for
trial two agents involved in the 1988 Pan Am bombing.
Now, by pretending to eliminate WMD he does not
possess, the colonel has given a huge political bonus to Bush
and Blair, a way for them to evade censure for shamelessly
lying their nations into the Iraq war. They will reward
Khadaffi by halting efforts to overthrow him, slowly lifting sanctions, and allowing U.S. and British oil firms to
resume exploiting Libya’s high-grade oil. That’s politics.
The CIA helped Khadaffi into power in 1969. In the
1980s, the U.S., Britain and France each tried to assassinate him. Now, it seems the flamboyant colonel with nine
lives is slated to be reborn as a good Arab and U.S. ally.
Source: the Toronto Sun; CANOE
Rumsfeld May Consider Striking Hizbullah
to Provoke Syria
Jan. 22 — US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is
considering provoking a military confrontation with Syria
by attacking Hizbullah bases near the Syrian border in
Lebanon, according to the authoritative London-based
Jane’s Intelligence Digest.
In an article to be published on Jan. 23, the journal
said multi-faceted US attacks, which would be conducted
within the framework of the global war on terrorism, are
likely to focus on Hizbullah bases in the Bekaa Valley of
eastern Lebanon. It noted that the deployment of US special forces in the Bekaa Valley, where most of Syria’s
occupation forces in Lebanon are based, would be highly
inflammatory and would “almost certainly involve a confrontation with Syrian troops.”
Such a conflict might well prove to be the objective of
the US, said the journal, which described Washington’s
strategic benefits from a confrontation with Syria. These
include pressuring Damascus into ending its support for
anti-Israel Palestinian groups; persuading Syria to abandon its weapons of mass destruction and to withdraw its
troops from Lebanon; stimulating a situation where Syrian
leader Bashir Assad can be ousted; and crushing Hizbullah
and ending its presumed connections with al-Qaida.
“The political consequences of a US attack against
SHARIA, continued from page 7
receives half the inheritance that goes to the man, which is
Shi’ite custom. The Sunnis exclude women from inheriting.”
Opposed to polygamy, they intend to block it by indirect
methods. “Tunisian law is based on Sharia, but forbids polygamy because Islamic law complements multiple marriages
with numerous conditions. The husband must be fair to all
four wives. And that never happens. Since this condition
isn’t applicable, polygamy cannot, therefore, be practiced,”
clarify the two militants.
Social Problems
The demographic situation is one of the arguments
advanced by polygamy’s partisans. Wars and Saddam’s
reign of terror have created a surplus of women, who represent 60% of the population. The women can’t understand
how such a decision could have been taken so hastily, on the
night of December 29, five minutes before the end of a
Provisional Government Council meeting with the leader
of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq,
Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, presiding, just then finishing his period in the rotation, at a time when many delegates, notably
those from the Christian community, were not present.
Had women been sacrificed to conciliate the clerics
whose grumbling embarrasses the present appointed authorities who enjoy no real legitimacy? Pascale Warda, the Christian official for the Union of Assyrian Women, a group that
rejects the communitarian and denominational vision that
underlies the 137 Decision on the family, asks that question. “Today’s women are doctors or university professors.
They fill three quarters of positions in the ministries. They
won’t tolerate someone telling them that they lack something. The problem isn’t the Koran, but the mullahs’ interpretation of it,” says the young woman, who refuses to see
Islam become state religion.
Iraqi women at the Washington Foreign Press
Center briefing on “Human Rights and Women in
Iraq: Voices of Iraqi Women.” Photo source: State.gov
Strike Threat
The group meets twice a week to try to promote women’s
place in society. Lawyers, engineers, mothers, they intend
to be represented in the democratization process.
“We’ve written a letter to Paul Bremer in which we
demand that representative organizations in the future
include at least 40% women,” explains the lawyer Ban
Jamil, adding: “If no one listens to us, we won’t only
demonstrate, we’ll strike.” Taken by surprise, the new acting president of the Governing Council, Adnan Pachachi,
has set aside Jan. 29 for Decision 137 and promised new
discussions.
Source: Liberation. Translation: Truthout French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.
9
Lebanon... could result in the destabilization of a country
that is still rebuilding its infrastructure a decade after a
ruinous 15-year civil war,” noted the journal.
“It would also fuel Muslim and Arab hostility toward
the US at a time when US-led occupation forces are fighting the ongoing insurgency in Iraq.
“In these circumstances, taking on Hizbullah in the
Bekaa Valley is likely to prove a highly risky undertaking.
“However,” it continued, “given the Bush administration’s doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, it remains entirely
possible that Washington will soon launch military strikes
against Lebanon, regardless of the consequences for wider
regional stability.”
The journal noted that the US administration has long
considered Damascus “a prime candidate for regimechange,” along with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and, possibly,
Saudi Arabia.
“Syria, once a powerhouse of Arab radicalism that
could not be ignored, has been seriously weakened, both
militarily and politically. Washington may feel that the
time is coming to oust Assad and the ruling generals.
“Targeting Syria via Lebanon, the only concrete political influence Damascus has to show following decades of
radical diplomacy, could prove to be a means to that end.”
The journal also noted that, “there is reason to believe
that Iran and the US are moving toward some form of tactical understanding as a consequence of covert diplomacy.” As a result, it said, Teheran has been steadily reducing
its support for the regime in Damascus.
The journal added that Bashir Assad lacks both the
ruthlessness and political acumen of his father, Hafez,
whom he succeeded in June 2000, and he is constrained
by members of his father’s old guard who are continuing
to block his tentative efforts at reform.
“These factors make Damascus vulnerable to pressure from both the US and Israel, particularly since US
forces are deployed in Iraq, Syria’s eastern neighbor.”
During the past six months, it added, Washington has
increased the US military presence along the Syrian border with Iraq “and, on several occasions, has sent special
forces into Syrian territory or penetrated Syrian air space.
“In one incident, US troops pursued suspected Iraqi
militants into Syria and fought a running battle that left
dozens of people, including some Syrians, dead.
“Israel’s air-strike in southern Lebanon earlier this
week,” it added, “is very unlikely to be the last time Israeli
forces cross the border to strike at targets alleged to be
militant bases and training camps.”
Source: Jerusalem Post
Triangle Free Press, February 2004
COMMENTARY
The Kitchen-Table State of the Union
By Robert L. Borosage
Jan. 15 — With the stock market surging and the economy
growing, George W. Bush has begun touting the success of his
tax cuts. In his State of the Union address on January 20,
Bush will no doubt argue that we're on the right track and
need to stay the course. But for most Americans the rosy
statistics don't reflect their reality. When they talk at night
after the kids have gone to bed, they worry that things are getting
worse, not better. And in case after case, the President’s
policies are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Consider the State of the Union as it looks not from the White
House or Wall Street but from America’s kitchen tables.
Jobs. Jobs are scarce and increasingly insecure. The
new jobs that laid-off workers are getting generally don't
have the pay or benefits of the ones they lost. Despite the
much-advertised economic recovery, Bush will have the
worst jobs record of any President since the Great Depression.
In addition to the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs,
high-tech and service jobs are headed overseas too. Bush
has not only pushed for more of the same trade accords that
helped get us into this hole, but he has failed to address
China's mercantilist trade and currency policies, which
have led to a staggering $100 billion US trade deficit.
Much of the corporate investment that came from the
wealthy benefiting from Bush's tax cuts went abroad, not
here. Bush's policies are generating more jobs in Shanghai
than in Saginaw.
Wages. Wage growth is the slowest in forty years.
Homelessness is up, and more working people are in poverty. But the Bush Administration not only effectively
opposes any increase in the minimum wage, it pushed
regulations that will strip millions of workers of overtime
pay, despite the opposition of many Democrats and some
Republicans in Congress.
Healthcare. Healthcare costs are soaring, with businesses forcing workers to pick up more of the tab or dropping coverage altogether. Americans now pay the highest
prescription drug prices in the world. Yet Bush not only
did nothing to bring the costs of HMOs and insurance
companies under control, he pushed through a prescrip-
tion drug bill that prohibits Medicare from negotiating a
better price for seniors. To add insult to injury, the bill outlaws buying cheaper drugs from Canada. Bush turned a
$400 billion benefit for the elderly into a $400 billion subsidy to the drug companies.
Schools. The largest number of children ever entered
our public schools this past fall. But schools across the
country are being forced to cut back, laying off teachers,
doubling up classes, putting off needed construction. Bush
not only broke his promise on funding his school reforms,
but, with the states facing the worst fiscal crisis in fifty years,
he also opposed state aid that would protect schools from
debilitating cuts. Then he zeroed out funding for school
construction in the federal budget.
College Costs. Tuition at four-year public colleges is
going up nearly 15 percent a year. Federal grants for
deserving students haven't kept up. The maximum Pell grant
now covers 39 percent of public college tuition, down
from 84 percent in 1975-76. Students graduate with 35
percent more debt than a decade ago. More and more are
priced out of four-year colleges altogether. Bush broke his
campaign promise to raise the maximum grant; under his
new budget, grant levels will fall even further behind costs.
Retirement Security. Many older workers saw their
retirement dreams shattered when the stock market collapsed. Only one in five employees in the private sector has
a defined-benefit pension at work. And the Enron scandal
showed how corporate executives were abusing worker savings accounts. But Bush now wants to privatize Social
Security, which would almost certainly lead to cuts in benefits. And his post-Enron pension “reform” legislation
would make it legal for corporations to provide pensions
for the few on the top floor and reduce the number covered
on the shop floor.
Safe Food. Parents sensibly worry about what their
children are eating, as more of our food is imported and
less of it is inspected. Food-borne diseases have caused
some 228 million illnesses and more than 15,000 deaths
since Bush took office. And now there’s a mad cow threat.
Yet Bush and the Republican Congress blocked legislation
to impose stronger penalties for food-safety violations and
opposed measures that would have made it easier to trace
the source of contaminated meat.
Safe Workplaces. More than 4.7 million workers
were injured or became ill on the job in 2002. Violations
of workplace safety laws have grown as companies seek to
cut costs. Federal inspectors are unable to keep up. But
Bush has tried every year to cut the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration budget, which currently allows
for inspections of only 5 percent of workplaces.
Personal Debt. Personal debt is at record heights, as
are personal bankruptcies. Credit card companies continue
to impose obscene interest and penalty charges, yet Bush
and the GOP leadership in Congress blocked efforts to
provide consumers with clear warning about credit card
charges and pushed to make it easier to collect against
families forced into bankruptcy.
National Security. Since 9/11, Americans can't help
worrying about terrorist threats. Even here Bush has fallen short. The EPA reports that there are 123 plants where
release of chemicals would threaten more than 1 million
people. Yet after the oil and chemical lobby mobilized
against it, Bush opposed legislation to create minimum
standards for security and hazard reduction in such plants.
The list could go on, but the point is clear. Bush’s
boasting about his economic program may simply indicate
that he is out of touch with the reality that most Americans
face. But the reason his policies are making things worse
is that they are designed to serve the wealthy and the corporate lobbies that pay for his party. And that means
rewarding the few and leaving the many to pay the price.
This is beginning to sink in. With the capture of
Saddam Hussein and the revival of economic growth,
Bush's job-approval ratings have bounced back. But what
pollsters call his “re-elect numbers”—the number of
Americans who say they would vote to re-elect him—
remain low. Americans are notoriously inattentive to
national politics and sensibly cynical about politicians.
But they know that although champagne corks may be
popping in the boardrooms, there is little to celebrate
around the kitchen table.
Source: The Nation
Poverty, Not Terror, the Real Threat — U.N. Chief
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 22 — The world is so preoccupied with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction that
it continues to ignore the real threats facing mankind, U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Wednesday.
The fears that stalk most people, he said, are those of
poverty, starvation, unemployment and deadly diseases —
not nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
“In the daily lives of most people, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are remote and hypothetical threats,” Annan added.
His statement contrasted starkly to sentiments
expressed Tuesday by U.S. President George W. Bush. In
his annual State of the Union address, Bush said global
terrorism was still a major threat to the United States.
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Triangle Free Press, February 2004
Vowing to continue his political and military crusade
against terrorism and WMD, Bush warned his countrymen
against going “back to the dangerous illusion that terrorists
are not plotting and outlaw regimes are no threat to us.”
If the United States had failed to act in Iraq, he continued, former president Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs
would have “continued to this day.” Bush, however, did
not admit the U.S. failure to find any WMDs in the country it now occupies: the primary reason cited for attacking
Iraq last March.
When people are really threatened with weapons,
added Annan, it is most often not with WMDs, but with
“weapons of individual destruction” — AK-47 assault
rifles, machetes, landmines and small arms.
In an implicit criticism of the unilateral U.S. military
attack on Iraq, Annan said the U.N. charter is very clear:
member states have the right to defend themselves — and
each other — if attacked.
“But the first purpose of the United Nations itself, as
laid down in Article 1 of the charter, is to take effective
collective measures for the prevention and removal of
threats to the peace.”
Expressing the hope that the world’s attention will not
be monopolized by Iraq this year — as in 2003 — the U.N.
chief regretted that the international community continues
10
to lag in progress toward attaining the eight Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) set by the U.N. General Assembly
in September 2000.
Then, 150 world leaders who met at the United Nations
pledged not only to reduce by half the proportion of people
living in extreme poverty and hunger, but also vowed to
achieve universal primary education and halt the spread of
the deadly disease AIDS.
The goals also call for equal access to education by
boys and girls; a reduction in child mortality by two-thirds
and maternal mortality by three-quarters; an improvement
in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, and a global
partnership for development between rich and poor nations.
“Those pledges,” Annan said, “should be engraved on
the heart, or at least the desk, of every political leader in
every country.”
The General Assembly, conscious of the problems
facing developing nations, has decided to hold a high-level
meeting in New York in 2005 to review the progress made
in reaching the development goals.
“We have to mobilize for that event, and firm up its
scope and format,” Annan told a meeting of the 133-member
Group of 77, the largest single group of developing nations.
“If we are not on track by the end of next year, all
hope of reaching the goals by 2015 will soon vanish,” he
told delegates.
Developing nations agree with Annan that they will not
reach those targets unless rich nations help — with increased
official development assistance (ODA), with investments,
with advice and with debt relief.
Underlying all this is a demand for a reform of the
global trading system, so that producers in poor countries
no longer face trade barriers or unfair competition from
subsidized imports.
The economic policies of most rich nations make the
situation worse for the poor — distancing them from the
MDGs, Saradha Ramaswamy Iyer of the Third World
Network told IPS.
Agricultural subsidies, she said, favor five percent of
the population of rich nations and impoverish about 90
percent of the people in the South.
The situation with regard to ODA is no better, she
said, because it has continued to decline in real terms.
In a report released last week the United Nations said
that although ODA increased from 52.3 billion dollars in
2001 to 57 billion dollars in 2002, it still fell far short of
the minimum requirements.
“A large gap remains between ODA flows and the
estimated 100 billion dollars a year needed to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals,” added World Economic
Situation and Prospects, 2004.
Last year, the international community was concerned
— and rightly so — with issues of peace and security,
Annan said.
“But there will be no peace and no security, even for the
most privileged amongst us, in a world that remains divided
between extremes of wealth and poverty, health and disease, knowledge and ignorance, freedom and oppression.”
“Surely, we should have learnt that by now,” he
added. “And so our first great task for 2004 is to re-focus
the world’s attention on development.” The second task,
he said, is to start rebuilding collective security.
Source: Commondreams.org, Inter Press Service
Slaughterhouse Politics
By James Ridgeway
(Letter)
We Need Leaders
Who Can Think Green
At the start of 2004, more than a quarter of Earth’s
nearly 6.4 billion people have entered the “consumer
class.” Consumption has gone beyond fulfilling needs
or dreams to become an end in itself. Natural systems,
overwhelmed, can’t keep up. Humanity has created an
interrelated web of life-threatening ecological problems.
We are depleting our resources: forests, fisheries, range
lands, croplands, and plant and animal species. We are
destroying the biological diversity on which evolution
thrives (this is the sixth great wave of extinction in the
history of life on Earth, different from the others in that
it is caused not by external events but by humans).
With powerful new electrical and diesel pumping techniques, we are draining our aquifers and lowering our
water tables. We are polluting systemically our air, water,
and soil, and consequently our food. We are depleting
the stratospheric ozone that shields us from harmful ultraviolet radiation. And, we are experiencing symptoms of
global warming: heat waves, devastating droughts, dying
forests, accelerated species extinction, dying coral reefs,
melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and more frequent
and intense storms.
Humanity exists as a tiny fragment of an immensely
larger interlocking whole in which all of the parts are
interconnected and dependent upon each other for survival. In every conceivable way, we are linked to our
environment. We evolved from it. Everything comes from
our natural systems. If we destroy them, we destroy
ourselves. Natural systems will regenerate but we will
be gone. Nature, which couldn’t care less, will have
eliminated us. It’s that simple. It’s happened before.
It’s way past time to wake up. Enlightened leadership
is long overdue. From where will it come?
Joe Simonetta
Sarasota, FL
contamination, stains, metal shavings, blood, bruises, hair,
hide, chemical residues, salmonella, added substances, and
WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 31, 2003 — When it comes to advanced disease symptoms.”
politics you just can’t beat the cattlemen for bellyaching.
After some children died from an E. coli outbreak in
They are forever running around Washington, wanting to pay the 90s, Lehman told about his work: “I merely walk to the
lower fees for overgrazing the public range or demanding back of the truck. That’s all I’m allowed to do. Whether
cutbacks in environmental laws that might actually slight- there’s boxed meat or carcasses in the truck, I can’t touch
ly intrude on their operations, and like everyone else under the boxes. I can’t open the boxes. I can’t use a flashlight.
the big Republican tent, babbling on about the wonders of I can’t walk into the truck. I can only look at what is visithe “free market.”
ble in the back of the trailer.”
80,000 pounds of meat… “U.S.D.A.
In what will surely rank
He told one interviewer how
as cattle ranchers’ biggest and Inspected and Passed” in 45 seconds. he did his inspections: “I’ve
stupidest p.r. campaign, some
just inspected over 80,000
Amarillo ranchers sued Oprah because in 1996 she had pounds of meat (boxed beef rounds and boxed boneless
Howard Lyman, a former rancher and food activist, as a beef briskets) on two trucks. I wasn’t running or hurrying
guest on her show. The ranch owners think Lyman is a dan- either. One was bound for Santa Fe Springs, California, the
gerous nut. He told Oprah how the beef men were feeding other for San Jose, California. I just stamped on their papercattle ground up bits and pieces of other cattle, including work ‘U.S.D.A. Inspected and Passed’ in 45 seconds.”
stuff from sick cows, and warned it was only a matter of
The revelations by Lehman, who died in 1998, drove
time before Mad Cow Disease hit the U.S.
the ranchers and their U.S.D.A. buddies nuts. They said he
The cattlemen flipped out. Paul Engler, owner of Cactus was a troublemaker and, because he thought free-trade
Feeders Inc. filed suit, claiming that Oprah and Lyman hurt laws made matters worse, a protectionist. He was ordered
the cattle futures market and charging that they violated a to retire, face being fired or transfer to another location.
Texas law that forbids “knowingly making false statements” He retired, saying he was “just tired of the whole thing.”
about agricultural business. Claiming a right to free speech, But he fought the U.S.D.A. until he died.
Oprah won, but the beef men nonetheless insisted you could
Lehman was far from the only critic. “Adequate inspection on the border has been lacking for years, said Mike
rest assured that Mad Cow could never come to the U.S.
It is unclear whether the government’s ban on “down- Callicrate, an outspoken Kansas rancher, especially on the
ers,” animals that can’t walk, from going into the food topic of the U.S.D.A.’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
What many people don’t understand is how minimal
supply will actually keep this meat from being consumed.
Downers may well end up being fed to other animals. And meat inspection is. Here’s a typical instance, described by
the U.S.D.A.’s testing program applies to only a few thou- an Iowa farmer: He buys cows or heifers at auction, where
sand head of cattle, when there are millions of animals going they have been certified as having met health requireinto the feed supply. Currently the U.S.D.A. tests some ments—not because of first-hand inspection but because
20,000 animals a year out of 29 million steers and heifers of the seller’s history as a “good guy.” The farmer proceeds
slaughtered.
to feed the cattle corn, sometimes with a vegetable-based
Since 1997 the government has supposedly been imple- additive, and in two years sells them to a feed lot or maybe
menting a ban on the use of animal parts in food supplements a local butcher. There is no check on the health of the anigiven to cattle. Factory farming necessitates weaning the mals. Approval for sale is again based on the history of the
calf from the mother shortly after birth and feeding it pro- farm. What about sick cows? Say a cow falls down—he’s
tein supplements, which often contain parts of other cattle called a “downer.” According to this farmer, a vendor
and other animals. But on January 31, the Washington Post often is called; he’ll send a truck to pick up the animal, kill
reported that the General Accounting Office, the organization it (if it is still alive), and sell the parts into the meat system.
which carries out investigations for Congress, has criti- If the farmer spots a sick cow in his herd, he gets rid of it
cized enforcement of the ban as lax.
quick as he can. He doesn’t go through the rigmarole of
What the cattlemen detest most is the meat inspection testing it through a veterinarian, which takes time and
system. The story of how Upton Sinclair muckraked the costs money. He just gets rid of the animal and keeps mum
slaughterhouses some one hundred years ago and Teddy about what happened.
Roosevelt jumped in and fixed them all up is pretty much
Weak laws and weak enforcement are only part of the
fiction. The simple fact is the meat inspection system isn’t reason for the slipshod inspection system. It’s a fact that
any good and anybody who even attempts to stand up to farmers and ranchers are under terrific pressure to make a
the Big Boy ranchers does so at his or her peril. Look what go of it. As Al Krebs, an activist who edits the Ag Biz
happened to Bill Lehman, who throughout the early 1990s Examiner, told the Voice, “If dairy farmers were getting a
worked as a meat inspector at Sweetgrass, Montana, a fair price for what they produce, they probably wouldn’t
busy port of entry for Canadian beef. By his own count, feel it necessary to squeeze every last penny out of their
Lehman himself rejected “up to 2.3 million pounds of con- herd, such as sending ‘downers’ off to the marketplace.”
taminated or mislabeled imports annually.” The reasons, Dairy farmers in the Seattle-Tacoma area are getting as little
according to Lehman, included “pus-filled abscesses, as $1 per gallon for their milk when it probably costs
sticky layers of bacteria leaving a stench, obvious fecal
Continued on the following page
11
Triangle Free Press, February 2004
about $1.40 to produce that gallon, says Krebs, and the
farmers may have to carry a debt of anywhere from $1,500
to $2,000 per cow. But, he points out, consumers in the
Seattle-Tacoma area were paying, as of last July, $3.52 per
gallon for whole milk, the highest prices anywhere in the
nation.
The beef industry is more centralized. The actual economics of beef production are determined not by any free
market, but by a highly concentrated industry. Four meatpackers—IBP, ConAgra, Excel (a subsidiary of Cargill),
and National Beef—control 85 percent of the market.
Work in the slaughterhouses can be extremely dangerous,
and it’s hardly worth it. An investigation by Mother Jones
a couple of years ago found that slaughterhouses pay among
the lowest wages and have turnover rates so high that every
year practically the entire work force has to be hired anew.
Most of the workers are illegal immigrants who often
don’t speak English and can’t read.
This screwed-up system does produce the desired results
once in a while: Bad meat is found and then recalled. Or
is it?
A study by the Center for Public Integrity, a D.C. watchdog group, found that only 43 percent of all meat products
recalled by their manufacturers from 1990-1997 was recovered. The rest of the meat—some 17 million pounds—was
eaten by unsuspecting consumers. Yet Congress fought off
efforts by the Secretary of Agriculture during that time to
get the authority to issue mandatory recalls of contaminated meat.
The investigation found that during the 1990s the
highly exclusive meat business spent $41 million financing
political campaigns of Congress members, more than one
third of them from House or Senate agriculture committees.
Among them: the majority and minority leaders of the
Senate (Trent Lott and Tom Daschle), the speaker of the
House and the House minority leader (Newt Gingrich and
Dick Gephardt), and six past or present chairmen or ranking minority members of the Senate and House agriculture
committees.
The cattle industry during that period employed 124
lobbyists to work the Hill, 28 of them previously either
lawmakers or aides to lawmakers. And it worked. “During
the escalating public health crisis of the past decade,” the
Center reported, “the food industry has managed to kill
every bill that has promised meaningful reform.” In lieu of
any serious rulemaking, the Clinton administration struck
a weak-ass deal with the industry to allow cattlemen to do
their own inspections and label their records “trade secrets”
so the public can’t look at them.
And the problem goes even beyond the threat that
contaminated meat poses to public health. Our so-called
factory farm system is a major pollutant; massive feedlots
foul our water sources around the country. An EPA report
from March ’98 noted: “Agricultural practices in the United
States are estimated to contribute to the impairment of 60
percent of the nation’s surveyed rivers and streams; 50 percent of the nation’s surveyed lakes, ponds, and reservoirs;
and 34 percent of the nation’s estuaries.”
The late Ed Abbey had it right when he declared, “The
rancher—with a few honorable exceptions—is a man who
strings barbed wire all over the range; drills wells and bulldozes stock ponds; drives off elk and antelope and bighorn
sheep; poisons coyotes and prairie dogs; shoots eagles, bears,
and cougars on sight; supplants the native grasses with
tumbleweed, snakeweed, povertyweed, cow shit, anthills,
mud, dust, and flies. And then leans back and grins at the TV
cameras and talks about how he loves the American West.”
Source: The Village Voice
Protect Women in the Military
Nov. 23, 2003 — In an era when 15 percent of the nation’s
armed forces are female, it’s an unpardonable outrage that
the military seems incapable of preventing or properly punishing what can only be described as an epidemic of rape in
the services.
“Betrayal in the Ranks,” an exhaustive, nine-month
investigation by a team of Denver Post reporters, concluded
that rape in the military may be more common than in the
civilian world but that the military often takes a more lenient
approach than civilian authorities.
The investigation also found another unacceptable
practice — the fact that military husbands often get a free
pass on domestic abuse that would land a civilian in jail.
Worse, Post reporters found an absymally low level of support for victims of both domestic violence and rape in such
key areas as victims’ advocacy and counseling and enforcement of restraining orders.
The Post series, which ran in November, has attracted
the attention of Congress. Chairman John Warner, R-Va., of
the Senate Armed Services Committee said he found the
revelations troubling and has asked a subcommittee to
investigate. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said hearings
might be held in 2004.
With the nation at war in Iraq, it is incomprehensible to
us how the Department of Defense can allow such conduct
to continue when it is blatantly prejudicial to the muchvaunted “good order and discipline” of the armed forces.
More than 204,500 American women serve in the active
duty military, compared with more than 1.17 million men.
Women in uniform are critical to the nation’s defense
and are entitled to feel safe, at least around their brothers in
arms. Sexual assault has caused some women to leave the
service and pushed many into depression and drug and alcohol abuse.
BENDIB CARTOON
www.bendib.com
Nearly one-third of the women in the military have
reported a rape or attempted rape, compared with 18 percent
in the civilian world.
Yet during the past decade, twice as many accused sex
offenders in the Army were given administrative punishments as were court-martialed. Since 1992, about 5,000
accused sex offenders in the Army, including alleged rapists,
avoided prison time. (The Air Force released only fragmentary data, and the Marines and Navy, none.)
These problems in the active-duty military resemble
those at the Air Force Academy, which was rocked by a rape
scandal earlier this year. Again and again, rape victims interviewed by Post reporters said they were punished for minor
infractions after reporting sexual assaults while attackers
went unpunished. Others said superior officers discouraged
them from pursuing prosecution. This is particularly disturbing because a distinctive feature of the Uniform Code of
Military Justice is that any person subject to the code may
bring charges against any other person subject to the code.
Congress needs to study the issue and come up with
solutions. Some observers, including the Cox Commission,
formed by the National Institute of Military Justice to study
the UCMJ, and others have suggested that the power of
commanding officers to order court-martials should be
scaled back, as it has been in Britain and Canada.
We have serious reservations about that proposal. The
military is like no other occupation. Disregard a civilian
boss, and you get fired. Disobey the lawful order of a military officer, and it’s Leavenworth time. Taking away the
power to court-martial is akin to making a commanding officer’s lawful orders optional. Congress should think carefully before tinkering with that authority. But Congress probably could and should create a mechanism requiring military
commanders to justify taking administrative rather than
judicial action against accused sexual offenders.
Not all sexual crimes and domestic violence offenses
occur on military installations or fall under the jurisdiction
of the UCMJ — but that doesn’t mean the Department of
Defense bears no responsibility to protect women, whether
females in the military or the spouses of servicemen.
Congress should appropriate funds to provide adequate
advocates and counselors, safe houses and other basic protection for these women.
By now it should be clear to all — the Pentagon,
Congress and the president — that the ongoing brutalization
of women is a shameful and unacceptable stain upon the
honor of the American armed forces.
Source: Denver Post
Triangle Free Press, February 2004
12
Bases for an Empire
By Chalmers Johnson
CARDIFF-BY-THE-SEA, Jan. 18 — Many Americans do
not recognize—or do not want to recognize—that the United
States dominates the world through its military power. Our
garrisons encircle the planet, and this vast network of U.S.
bases, on every continent except Antarctica, constitutes its
own form of empire. The Pentagon has remade the map of
U.S. territory in a way unlikely to be taught in any high school
geography class. But to understand the size and nature of our
imperial aspirations—and the degree to which a new kind
of militarism is undermining our constitutional order—it’s
crucial to have a sense of the dimensions of this globegirdling “Baseworld.”
Our military deploys more than half a million soldiers,
spies, technicians, teachers, dependents and civilian contractors in other nations. It dominates the oceans and seas
with a fleet of aircraft carriers. It operates numerous secret
bases outside the U.S. to monitor what the people of the
world, including our citizens, are saying, faxing or e-mailing to one another.
Our government installations abroad support an even
larger web of civilian industries, which design and manufacture weapons or provide services to build and maintain
our far-flung outposts. These contractors are charged with,
among other things, keeping uniformed members of the
imperium comfortably housed, well-fed, amused and supplied with enjoyable, affordable leisure and vacation facilities. Whole sectors of the U.S. economy have come to rely
on the military for their profits.
It’s not easy to assess the size or exact value of our empire
of bases. According to the Defense Department’s annual
“Base Structure Report” for fiscal year 2003, which itemizes foreign and domestic U.S. military real estate, the
Pentagon occupies 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and another 6,000 bases in the U.S. and its territories.
Pentagon bureaucrats calculate that it would require at
least $113.2 billion to replace just the foreign bases—
surely far too low a figure but still larger than the gross
domestic products of most countries. The military high
command deploys to our overseas bases some 253,288
uniformed personnel, plus an equal number of dependents
and Department of Defense civilian officials, and employs
an additional 44,446 locally hired foreigners.
These numbers, although staggeringly large, do not begin
to cover all the actual bases we occupy globally. The 2003
“Base Structure Report” fails to mention, for instance, any
garrisons in Kosovo—even though it is the site of the huge
Camp Bondsteel built in 1999 and maintained since by
Halliburton subsidiary KBR, formerly known as Kellogg,
Brown & Root. The report similarly omits bases in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar and
Uzbekistan, although the U.S. military has established
colossal base structures in these places since Sept. 11,
2001. The Defense Department, which recognizes only 60
overseas sites as full-fledged bases, regards these massive
redoubts as temporary installations.
For their occupants, these foreign bases are not necessarily unpleasant. Military service today, which is voluntary,
bears almost no relation to that experienced by soldiers during World War II or the Korean and Vietnam wars. Most
chores like laundry, KP (“kitchen police”), mail call and
latrine cleaning have been subcontracted to private companies. About one-third of the funds recently appropriated
for the war in Iraq—roughly $30 billion—are going into
private American hands. Where possible, everything is done
to make daily existence seem like life at home. The first
Burger King has already gone up inside the enormous military base we’ve established at Baghdad’s international airport.
Our armed missionaries live in a self-contained world
serviced by its own airline, the Air Mobility Command,
whose fleet of long-range aircraft links our outposts from
Greenland to Australia. For generals and admirals, the mil-
itary provides 71 Learjets and other luxury planes to fly
them to such spots as the armed forces’ ski and vacation center at Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps or to any of the 234
military golf courses the Pentagon operates worldwide.
Once upon a time, you could trace the spread of imperialism by counting up a country’s colonies. America’s version of the colony is the military base. If you examine our
“footprint,” the remarkably insensitive metaphor used by
defense officials to describe our empire of bases, you can
see that it does a good job of covering what those officials
call the “arc of instability.” This wide swath of the world,
which extends from the Andean region of South America
(read: Colombia) through North Africa and then sweeps
across the Middle East to the Philippines and Indonesia, takes
in most of what used to be called the Third World—and,
perhaps no less crucially, it covers the world’s key oil reserves.
Marine Brig. Gen. Mastin Robeson, commanding our
1,800 troops occupying the old French Foreign Legion
base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti at the entrance to the
Red Sea, claims that to put preventive war into action, we
require a “global presence,” by which he means gaining
hegemony over any place that is not already under our
thumb. According to the American Enterprise Institute, the
idea is to create “a global cavalry” that can ride in from
“frontier stockades” and shoot up the “bad guys” as soon
as we get some intelligence on them.
To put our forces close to every hot spot or danger area
in this newly discovered arc of instability, the Pentagon
has proposed many new bases, including at least four and
perhaps as many as six in Iraq. In addition, we plan to keep
under control the whole northern quarter of Kuwait—
1,600 square miles of that country’s 6,900 square miles—
that we use to resupply our Iraq legions and as a place for
bureaucrats based in central Baghdad to relax.
Other countries mentioned as potential sites for what
the U.S. military’s top European commander calls our new
“family of bases” include: in the impoverished areas of the
“new” Europe, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria; in Asia,
Pakistan (where we already have four bases), India,
Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and even,
unbelievably, Vietnam; in North Africa, Morocco, Tunisia
and Algeria; and in West Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Mali and
Sierra Leone (even though it has been torn by civil war
since 1991). The models for all these new installations,
according to Pentagon sources, are the string of bases we
have built around the Persian Gulf in the last two decades
in such anti-democratic autocracies as Bahrain, Kuwait,
Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Most of these new bases will be what the military, in
a switch of metaphors, calls “lily pads,” to and from which
our troops could jump, like well-armed frogs, depending
on where they were needed. The Pentagon justifies this
expansion by leaking plans to close many of the huge
Cold War military reservations in Europe, South Korea
and perhaps Okinawa, Japan. In Europe, plans for giving
up our bases include several in Germany, perhaps in part
because of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s defiance of
President Bush over Iraq.
But such plans are unlikely to amount to much. The
Pentagon’s planners do not really seem to grasp just how
13
many buildings the 71,702 soldiers and airmen in
Germany occupy and how expensive it would be to build
bases to house them elsewhere. Lt. Col. Amy Ehmann in
Hanau, Germany, has said, “There’s no place to put these
people” in Romania, Bulgaria or Djibouti, and she predicts 80 percent will end up staying in Germany.
While there is every reason to believe that the impulse to
create ever more lily pads in the Third World remains unchecked, there are several additional reasons to doubt that
some of the more grandiose plans, for either expansion or
downsizing, will ever be put into effect. For one thing, Russia
is opposed to the expansion of U.S. military power on its
borders and is already moving to preclude additional U.S.
bases in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
When it comes to downsizing, on the other hand,
domestic politics may come into play. By law, the Pentagon’s
Base Realignment and Closure Commission must submit
to the White House by Sept. 8, 2005, its fifth and final list
of domestic bases to be shut down. As an efficiency measure, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has said
he’d like to be rid of at least one-third of domestic Army
bases and one-quarter of domestic Air Force bases, which
is sure to produce a political firestorm on Capitol Hill. To
protect their respective states’ bases, the two mother hens
of the Senate’s military construction appropriations subcommittee, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.), are demanding that the Pentagon close
overseas bases first and bring the troops now stationed there
home to domestic bases, which would then remain open.
Hutchison and Feinstein got included in the Military
Appropriations Act of 2004 money for an independent
commission to investigate and report on overseas bases that
are no longer needed. But in light of the administration’s
fervor to expand the U.S. “footprint,” the commission is
unlikely to have much of an effect.
There is plenty of evidence that our growing military
presence abroad incites rather than lessens terrorism. By
far the greatest defect in the “global cavalry” strategy is
that it accentuates Washington’s impulse to apply irrelevant
military remedies to terrorism. As the prominent British
military historian Correlli Barnett has observed, the U.S.
attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq only increased the threat
from Al Qaeda. From 1993 through the Sept. 11 assaults
of 2001, there were five major Al Qaeda attacks worldwide; in the two years since then, there have been 17 such
bombings tied to the terrorist organization. As Barnett puts
it, “Rather than kicking down front doors and barging into
ancient and complex societies with simple nostrums of
‘freedom and democracy,’ we need tactics of cunning and
subtlety, based on a profound understanding of the people
and cultures we are dealing with—an understanding up till
now entirely lacking in the top-level policymakers in
Washington, especially in the Pentagon.”
But perhaps they understand all too well. The “war on
terrorism” is, at best, only a small part of the reason for all
this military strategizing. The real reason for constructing
this new ring of U.S. bases along the equator is to expand
our empire and reinforce our military domination of the world.
And in that, the administration seems to be succeeding.
Source: Los Angeles Times; Rabble.ca
Triangle Free Press, February 2004
RESOURCE GUIDE
March 20 — “Bring the Troops Home Now”
Convergence in Fayetteville. Contact: Theresa ElAmin (theresaelamin@aol.com). Tickets available at
The Know and The Regulator, $10 students, $20
others, leaving 9 am from NCCU.
Ongoing Events
Monday–Friday 6pm: Free Speech Radio 90.7FM
Sundays: Chapel Hill Food Not Bombs serves free
vegetarian food at Internationalist Books at 405 W.
Franklin St. Chapel Hill. 3:30pm–5pm. 942-1740.
Sundays: Conscious Reggae Radio 90.7FM 12-2pm
Sundays: Counterspin 4 pm, Northern Hemisphere Live 5pm–7pm, Radio Programs 89.3FM.
Saturdays: Durham Food Not Bombs serves free
vegetarian food in the parking lot on the corner of
East Main and Dillard Sts in downtown Durham.
Noon–1pm. Info, call Brandon at 682-1440.
Saturdays 6pm: Youth Voice Radio 88.7FM
Organizations
Agricultural Resources Center & PESTicide
EDucation Project. 206 New Bern Place, Raleigh,
NC 27601. (919) 833-5333. PESTed@envirolink.org
http://www.ibiblio.org/arc
AIDS Community Residence Assoc Inc: 413 E
Chapel Hill St. Suite 111 Durham. 919 956-7901.
AIDS Service Agency of Orange County:
1700 N Greensboro St Carrboro 27510. 919 967-0009.
Black Radical Congress (BRC): Contact Ajamu or
Rukiya Dillahunt at 919 829-0957.
Black Workers For Justice: PO Box 6774 Raleigh
27611. Phone: 919 829-0957.
Carolina Justice Policy Center: 413 E Chapel Hill
St. Suite 111 Durham. Phone: 919 682-1149.
CITCA (Carolina Interfaith Taskforce on Central
America), Chapel Hill. Phone: 919 942-1694.
Clean Water for NC: 2009 Chapel Hill Rd.,
Durham NC 27707. 919-401-9600. hope@cwfnc.org
Common Sense Foundation: Box 10808 Raleigh
27605. 919 821-9270. www.common-sense.org
Durham Community Land Trustees: 1208 W.
Chapel Hill St. 27701. Phone: 919 490-0063.
National Postal Mail Handlers Union: Local 305:
323 E Ch-H St. Durham 27701. Phone: 919 956-9680.
Durham Food Co-Op: 1101 W Main St. Durham
27701. 919 490-0929. www.durhamcoop.com
Durham Peoples Alliance: PO Box 3053 Durham,
NC 27715. 919-682-7777. Contact: Nicole Rowan
(durhampa@mindspring.com). www.durhampa.org
Earth First! (Uwharrie). Direct Action
Environmental Group. PO Box 561 Chapel Hill
27514. For info, contact bison12@wildmail.com
CFSA (Carolina Farm Stewardship Assoc): 13
Hillsborough St Pittsboro 27312. 919 542-2402.
www.carolinafarmstewards.org
Hayti Heritage Center: 804 Old Fayetteville St
Durham 27701. Phone: 919 530-8102.
SLAVERY continued from page 1
In fields throughout the southern United States, people
are afraid of the CIW’s organizing power. The coalition was
formed by about 40 farm workers 10 years ago and has
grown to include hundreds of migrant laborers who flood
the town each growing season.
Contractors know that if they try to get away with the
standard practices of not paying, beating or denying workers water breaks, hundreds of farm laborers from Mexico,
Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti and other countries will show
up at their homes or places of business in protest. In one
of their early protests, coalition members marched on the
home of a contractor who had beaten a worker, carrying
the worker’s bloodied shirt above their heads and chanting
the old IWW slogan “An injury to one is an injury to all.”
Sierra Club: 1022 Washington St Raleigh 27605.
919 683-1197. Contact seedsnc@mindspring.com
Socialist Party of NC: www.ncsocialist.org
NC Green Party: www.ncgreenparty.org
Student Action W/Farmworkers: 1317 W
Pettigrew St Durham. Phone: 919 660-3652.
Contact Melinda. http://cds.aas.duke.edu/saf/
North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic
Violence: 301 W Main. Phone: 919 956-9124. For
info, contact Elizabeth Moore.
North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assualt:
174 Mine Lake Ct Raleigh 27615. 919 676-7611.
North Carolina Citizens for Safe Food: Chapel
Hill/Carrboro/Pittsboro. 919 361-1883. www.topica.com/lists/NC_Citizens_for_Safe_Food
North Carolina Citizens for Safe Food: Chapel
Hill/Carrboro/Pittsboro. Phone: 919 361-1883.
Contact Mark Huebner (mkhuebner@sprynet.com)
or Ellen Pietroski (bison12@hotmail.com).
www.topica.com/lists/NC_Citizens_for_Safe_Food
North Carolina Committee to Defend Health
Care. Contact Carol Kirschenbaum, 919-402-0133
or e-mail www.ncdefendhealthcare.org
Institute For Southern Studies: PO Box 531
Durham 27702. Phone: 919 419-8311. For info,
contact info@i4south.org. www.i4south.org
SEEDS (Community Garden): 807 W Chapel Hill
St Durham 27701. Phone: 919 683-1197. Contact
seedsnc@mindspring.com. www.seedsnc.org
Southerners On New Ground (SONG): 327 W
Main St. Durham 27701. Phone 919 667-1362.
NC-WARN (Waste Awareness & Reduction Network). PO Box 61051 Durham 27715-1051. 919 4900747. ncwarn@pobox.com. www.ncwarn.org
Environmental Federation Of NC: 331 W Main St
Durham. Phone: 919 687-4840.
SARN (Southern Anti-Racist Network): PO Box
52731, Durham, 27717, phone 682-9575. fax 6804358, email pssarn@aol.com
NC Alliance for Economic Justice: PO Box 28068
Raleigh 27518.
NCOSH: 1422 Broad St Durham 27705. Phone:
919 286-9249. For info, contact Amy.
Empowerment Project: 2007 Jo Mac Rd Chapel
Hill 27516. Phone: 919 967-1963. www.empowerment.project.org
RAFI (Rural Advancement Foundation
International): 274 Pittsboro Elementary School
Road Pittsboro 27312. Phone: 919 542-1396.
Southerners For Economic Justice: 2009 Chapel
Hill Rd Durham 27707. Phone: 919 401-5907.
NC Pride: Durham. Phone: 919 956-9900.
El Centro Hispano Inc.: 201 W Main St Durham
27701. Phone: 919 687-4635.
Peace Action Center: PO Box 10384 Raleigh 27605.
Phone: 919 493-3793.
Nature Conservancy: 4705 University Dr Durham
27707. Phone: 919 403-8558.
NC Lambda Youth Network: 115 Market Durham
27701. Phone: 919 683-3194.
Durham San Ramón Sister Communities: 1320
Shepherd Street, Durham 27707. Phone 919 4891656. www.durham-sanramon.org.
Good Work. 115 Market St., Suit 470, Durham, NC
27701. For info, call John Parker, 919/682-8473 x
11, or johnp@goodwork.org. www.goodwork.org
Triangle Free Press, February 2004
National Farm Worker Ministry: c/o ERUUF
4907 Garrett Rd Durham 27707. Phone: 919 4894485. For info, contact Lori Fernald-khamala.
Durham Comte On The Affairs Of Black People:
807 E Main St Durham 27701. 919 530-1100.
Centro Latino of Orange County: 101 Lloyd St
Carrboro 27510. Phone: 919 932-4652.
Chiapas Education Project: 814 N Buchanan Ave
Apt B Durham 27701. Phone: 919 286-0028.
Contact Ken Kresse (mayanworlds@yahoo.com).
NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of
Wake County) Meeting 4th Monday every month,
7pm, Highland United Methodist Church, Raleigh.
Contact Stephanie at 828-1725 (stephuffy@aol.com)
Durham Affordable Housing Coalition: 331 W
Chapel Hill St Durham. Phone: 919 683-1185.
FNB(Food Not Bombs): C/O Internationalist Books
405 W Franklin St Chapel Hill 27516. 919 942-1740.
PACE-NC (People About Changing Education in
North Carolina): For info, contact Daniela Cook at
919 401-9198.
NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People): 315 E Chapel Hill St
Suite 206 Durham 27701. Phone: 919 682-4930.
Democracy North Carolina: Main St., Carrboro,
NC 27510. Phone: 919 967-1699.
Center For Community Self Help & Self Help
Credit Union: 301 W Main St Durham 27701.
Phone: 919 956-4400.
Jobs With Justice: Contact Theresa El-Amin, 919682-9575.
Libertarian Party of NC: www.lpnc.org
Community Shares: 331 W Main St Durham.
919- 687-7653. www.nc.shares.org
FLOC (Farm Labor Organizing Committee):
c/o ERUUF 4907 Garrett Rd Durham 27707.
Phone: 919 489-4485.
Orange County Peace Coalition: 9 member groups
meet 6 times/year, 2nd Thursday, Chapel Hill Friends
Meeting, 531 Raleigh Road
Lesbian Health Resource Center: 138 E Chapel
Hill St Suite C11 Durham 27701. 919 956-9901.
Community Land Trust in Orange County: 104-C
Jones Ferry Rd Carrboro 27510. 919 960-0076.
Catholic Worker House: Raleigh. Phone: 919 7798766. For info, contact Patrick O’Neill.
Internationalist Books: 405 W Franklin St Chapel
Hill 27516. Phone: 919 942-1740.
www.internationalistbooks.com
Student Rural Health Coalition: Durham. Phone:
919 286-1129.
Triangle Greens: Durham, Raleigh, Capel Hill
Green Party local. www.trianglegreens.us
Triangle Friends Of UFW: Phone: 919 489-2659.
UE 150- Public Service Workers Union: PO Box
61233, Durham 2770. Phone: 919 687-4963, 0537.
West End Community Center: 705 Kent St
Durham 27701. Phone: 919 401-3912.
14
por Marcelo Ballvé
Jan 16, 2004 — El voluble presidente de Venezuela, Hugo
Chávez, actuó como el payaso de la clase durante la reciente
Cumbre de las Américas en Monterrey, México, y muchos
recibieron con entusiasmo sus comentarios jocosos a costa
de Estados Unidos y sus aliados.
El líder izquierdista dejó de lado el protocolo, ridiculizó
el evento catalogándolo como “para la foto” y llamándolo
“una pérdida de tiempo” e hizo bromas constantemente,
especialmente un fuerte comentario dirigido a la asesora
de Seguridad Nacional de Estados Unidos, Condoleezza Rice.
Las ocurrencias de Chávez lograron amplia cobertura
en los periódicos latinoamericanos. Era obligatorio para
los corresponsales de la conferencia, incluyendo los que
representaban medios relativamente conservadores como
Reforma de México y O Globo de Brasil, incluir una columna con las ocurrencias del venezolano.
No es solamente la irreverencia lo que provoca el
interes sino la verdad que muchos perciben en sus comentarios. Como cualquier bufón, Chávez expone realidades o
al menos hipérboles que se apróximan incomodamente a
la verdad.
Según el periódico de Buenos Aires, Página 12, los
reporteros esperaban la finalización de una importante
reunión entre el jefe del Fondo Monetario Internacional y
el presidente Néstor Kirchner, de la endeudada Argentina,
cuando Chávez pasó.
“Vieron las fotos que se están enviando desde Marte?”
preguntó a la concurrencia, refiriéndose al paisaje plano y
“quemado” que transmitía el vehículo espacial norteamericano.
Y agrega Chávez: “Bueno, parece que allí también estuvo
el Fondo Monetario Internacional”.
Las reformas de libre mercado y los onerosos pagos
establecidos por Washington y el Fondo Monetario-donde
los representantes norteamericanos constituyen el voto
decisivo-han empeorado la desigualdad social y perjudicado las economías de América Latina. Actualmente, las
economías regionales han descendido en los últimos seis
años, mientras estas reformas se acentuaron y ahora el 44
por ciento de los latinoamericanos viven en la pobreza,
según la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el
Caribe de las Naciones Unidas, CEPAL.
“Todavía estamos a tiempo de revertir esta situación,
pero estamos ahí, a las puertas del infierno”, dijo Chávez
sobre el tema, al presionar sobre su propuesta abiertamente ignorada de un fondo de ayuda humanitaria para
América Latina.
Exagera. Pero es esta dura realidad económica la que
constituyó el urgente telón de fondo de las conversaciones, no la propuesta norteamericana del programa de
trabajadores temporales, destinado a aplacar a México, o
sus acostumbradas ofertas de ayuda dadivosa.
Como el estudiante provocador que dice lo que piensa
a toda la clase, Chávez no teme ser acusado por críticas de
los Estados Unidos. El periódico izquierdista de México,
La Jornada, lo denominó “la bolsa de golpes” de los representantes norteamericanos.
Pero Chávez sabía que detrás de las puertas cerradas
del hotel varias de las delegaciones latinoamericanas seguramente se estarían frotando las manos en aprobación y
divirtiéndose con sus intervenciones. Sus principales alia-
Witness For Peace: Phone: 919 856-9468.
The Women's Center: Box 1057, 210 Henderson
St., Chapel Hill, NC 27514. 919.968.4610.
www.womenspace.org
everywoman@womenspace.org
Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom, 250 100 South Estes Drive Chapel Hill,
N.C. 27514, 919 942-2535.
Youth for Social Change: 115 N Market St
Durham 27701. Phone: 919 682-2466.
Youth Voice Radio: 413 E Chapel Hill St Durham
27701.
Submit listings to: info@trianglefreepress.org
“Now things like that don’t really happen, because
they know if our rights are violated we will march,” says
Francisca Cortez, a young woman from Oaxaca, Mexico
who came here five years ago to work in the fields and is now
a staff member at the coalition.
The CIW has gained national attention in the past year
for playing a crucial role in the prosecution of five slavery
rings affecting more than 1,000 workers in southwest Florida.
Immokalee workers went undercover at an operation in
Lake Placid, Florida, in order to testify against three contractors who would buy workers from the coyotes who
smuggled them across the border, then hold them under
armed guard 24 hours a day as they worked for wages of
$70 a week or less that were then garnished to pay for the
debt they had supposedly incurred with the coyotes.
The FBI began investigating the case largely at the
coalition’s behest, and in November 2002, three men were
sentenced to a total of 34 years in prison and $3 million in
assets for their role in the slavery ring. In November, three
Immokalee workers, Romeo Ramirez, Julia Gabriel and
Lucas Benitez, were awarded the prestigious Robert F.
Kennedy Memorial Human Rights Award for their work
against slavery.
By raising national awareness, the CIW’s work also has
helped spark other investigations of slavery. In December,
Actuación de Chávez en reunión cumbre
despierta interes en Latinoamérica
the Palm Beach Post announced the U.S. Department of
Justice’s ongoing investigation into slavery in another small
Florida town, Wimauma.
Besides their cooperation with governmental authorities in breaking up slavery rings and their direct actions
against contractors, the CIW is succeeding by taking their
campaign to the corporations that buy the produce, most
notably Taco Bell.
“If you target these growers, no one knows who they
are,” said Gerardo Reyes, a 26-year-old immigrant from
Zacatecas, Mexico, who came here as a farm worker and
is now a staff member for the coalition. “But everyone
knows who Taco Bell is. We won’t stop targeting the contractors and the growers, but we also want to target the
corporations that buy the produce and the consumers who
buy the products produced by the corporations.”
At the Robert F. Kennedy awards ceremony November
20 in Washington, D.C., Benitez called on the general
public to take responsibility for the food they consume.
“Behind the shiny, happy images promoted by the fastfood industry, there is another reality,” he said. “Behind those
images, the reality is that there are farm workers who contribute their sweat and blood so that enormous corporations can profit.”
Source: inthesetimes.org
ZAPATISTAS continuen
han subido desde 1994, concluye el Pew Hispanic
Institute. Unos 650,000 mexicanos, casi todos indocumentados, han llegado a EEUU cada año desde la
crisis de la devaluación del peso mexicano en 1995.
Desde el inicio del TLCAN, el sur de México ha
perdido 800,000 Ha de bosques tropicales bajo
grandes madereras transnacionales como la Boise
Cascade Corporation. A los trabajadores industriales
no les ha ido mejor bajo la pesada mano del TLCAN.
La invasión de bienes manufacturados ha diezmado
las industrias nacionales, desde textiles hasta
juguetes. El sistema bancario mexicano es ahora casi
en su totalidad propiedad de bancos estadunidenses,
canadienses y europeos, y sus ferrocarriles
pertenecen ahora a la estadunidense Union Pacific.
Una década después, zapatistas reafirman su autonomía.
Aunque el comercio con EEUU se ha multiplicado 300 veces desde aquel 1 de enero, en México
simpatizantes en Acteal hace seis años cumplidos esta
sólo se han creado medio millón de empleos. La mayor
Navidad), los rebeldes también han sido atacados por los
parte de los nuevos empleos creados como resultado del
partidos políticos y sufrido la indiferencia del Congreso,
TLCAN estuvieron en el sector de las maquilas, a lo largo
los tribunales y gran parte de la prensa.
de la frontera, donde las transnacionales acudían en tropel
Pero el movimiento zapatista ha sobrevivido y, 10
a absorber mano de obra mexicana barata. En los últimos
años después, con el aliento de organizaciones no guberdos años, sin embargo, más de 600 maquiladoras de
namentales nacionales e internacionales y un precio de
propiedad extranjera han dejado México para irse a
comercio justo para su café orgánico, está ampliando la
entornos salariales más bajos como Honduras, Haití y
infraestructura.
China.
Desairado por una ley de derechos indígenas modifiEntretanto, un cuarto de millón de trabajadores de
cada, el EZLN está construyendo su propia autonomía.
maquilas no están trabajando, y México está experimenAhora hay 38 municipalidades autónomas bajo influencia
tando sus más altas cifras de desempleo desde la crisis de
zapatista en este estado mayoritariamente indígena.
1995. Los salarios reales han caído en 3.4% desde el 1 de
En julio pasado, los zapatistas reformaron su estrucenero de 1994, dice el informe de Carnegie.
tura organizativa, creando Juntas de Buen Gobierno en cinco
Si el TLCAN las ha tenido difíciles, los zapatistas
“caracoles” o centros políticos y culturales regionales,
también han recorrido un arduo camino desde aquella
estableciendo la autonomía regional como una realidad
noche hace 10 años. Invadidos, ocupados (18,000 soldaviviente, al menos en el sureste de Chiapas.
dos del Ejército patrullan todavía las montañas y la selva
del sur de Chiapas) y masacrados (46 indígenas tzotziles
origen: lapress.org
15
dos, el argentino
Kirchner y el influyente presidente
brasileño Luiz Inacio
“Lula” da Silva, controlaron sus comentarios mucho más
que Chávez, pero se
unen a él oponiéndose a la mayor
parte de la agenda
norteamericana,
incluyendo el Acuerdo de Libre Comercio para las Américas, o ALCA, y el
embargo contra Cuba.
Fuera de cámara,
Lula, quien dispone
El Presidente de Venezuela,
Hugo Chavez, con sus
de un poder decisipartidarios entusiásticos.
vo en Sudamérica,
REUTERS/Howard Yanes
compartió un caluroso abrazo y un almuerzo privado con él.
La relación de Chávez con otros gobiernos de la región
sirven como barómetro de sus actitudes frente a Washington.
Frías, sino hostiles, son las actitudes contra Venezuela por
parte de aliados claves de Estados Unidos como Chile, México
(quienes ya tienen planes o tratados de libre comercio con
Estados Unidos) y Colombia (recipiente de billones de
dólares norteamericanos en asistencia militar y financiera).
“No tenemos miedo, no le tememos a nada”, fueron
las primeras palabras combativas de Chávez a su llegada,
en respuesta a acusaciones de la Casa Blanca de que estaba complotando con Cuba para “desestabilizar” Uruguay,
Ecuador y Bolivia, países que están viviendo crecientes
movimientos de izquierda o indígenas.
“No tengo nada que ver con eso. La desestabilización
real es producida por el neoliberalismo”, agregó Chávez.
El neoliberalismo es el nombre que se le da a las recetas
de Washington de libre comercio, privatizaciones y liberalización de mercados.
Castro y Chávez no esconden sus contactos con líderes
políticos afines de América Latina. La percepción popular
es que cualquiera sean las consecuencias que esta alianza
provocá, es poco comparado con el impacto que tienen las
medidas de austeridad impuestas por el Fondo Monetario.
En su discurso durante la conferencia, el presidente
Bush fustigó a Cuba y dijo que Venezuela, rica en petróleo,
y Bolivia y Haití eran lugares donde la democracia estaba
“en peligro”. Condoleezza Rice ya le había advertido a
Chávez que debía aceptar un proceso de destitución en su
contra proceder de manera “libre y sin obstáculos”.
Chávez se molestó ante la amenaza norteamericana y
la insinuación de que intentaría sabotear el proceso de destitución. Le dijo a la agencia The Associated Press que
Rice era “ignorante” y le recomendó que leyera la constitución de Venezuela.
En 2002, Chávez, presidente elegido democráticamente, fue destituido durante 48 horas por un golpe militar-empresarial que fue aceptado sin críticas por la Casa
Blanca. Sin embargo, la mayoría de los líderes regionales
afirmaron que la democracia había sido subvertida. Ahora,
la oposición venezolana confía en la destitución para
sacarlo a Chávez.
Bush, retractándose, comentó que la preocupación de
Estados Unidos referente a la destitución se centraba solamente en la “integridad” del proceso.
Chávez estuvo de acuerdo. “Esa”, dijo, “es una
declaración mucho más inteligente”.
origen: Pacific News Service
Triangle Free Press, February 2004
TRIANGLE FREE PRESS ESPAN˜ OL
trianglefreepress.com
www.trianglefreepress.org
Durham, North Carolina
No. 32, February 2004
HAITÍ
Bicentenario entre protestas
por Jane Regan
21 Enero — Hace 200 años, el humo se despejó después
de 13 años de sangrienta lucha que dejó ciudades, plantaciones y campos de la colonia francesa de Santo Domingo
calcinados y arrasados, y la nueva nación de Haití declaró
su independencia de Francia. Fue la primera revolución de
esclavos negros exitosa en el mundo, y la segunda república en el hemisferio.
El 1 de enero de 1804, el general ex esclavo Jean-Jacques
Dessalines y otros generales se reunieron en la ciudad portuaria de Gonaïves. Allí anunciaron que en lo sucesivo
Haití tendría “un gobierno estable” y que la gente disfrutaría “de una libertad consagrada en sangre”.
Pero dos siglos y más de 30 golpes de Estado después,
Haití sigue en la búsqueda de la estabilidad y, según críticos del gobierno, de las libertades prometidas por sus fundadores. Pero en vez de colonialistas versus esclavos, mulatos
versus negros, o ricos versus pobres, hoy el enfrentamiento
se da entre el gobierno y sus partidarios, y los manifestantes
que protestan en su contra. Por ello no sorprendió que
cuando el 1 y 2 de enero Haití celebraba su bicentenario,
la crítica, la controversia y la violencia acompañaran las
celebraciones, la pompa y los acontecimientos.
El presidente Jean-Bertrand Aristide encabezó ceremonias en Port-au-Prince y en Gonaïves, y unas dos decenas de países y el Vaticano enviaron delegaciones, pero al
contrario de los planes originales, los únicos jefes de Estado
fueron el presidente sudafricano Thabo Mbeki y el primer
ministro de Bahamas Perry Christie.
Desde el momento en que Aristide y el Parlamento
fueron elegidos en cuestionados comicios en noviembre
del 2000, su gobierno ha enfrentado críticas y sanciones
económicas a nivel internacional y crecientes manifestaciones a nivel local. Más de 40 personas han sido
asesinadas y casi 100 heridas en los últimos tres meses a
causa de la agitación, protestas y violencia policial. Los
críticos de Aristide están exigiendo que renuncie antes del
final de su mandato de cinco años.
Aun así, el 1 de enero decenas de miles acudieron a
presenciar los discursos, danzas y la liberación de palomas
blancas en el Palacio Nacional. En su frenesí por llegar a
la veranda del Palacio Nacional, donde Aristide, Mbeki y
varios centenares de funcionarios e invitados se encontraban sentados, partidarios de Aristide derribaron la valla de
hierro labrado y trajeron abajo las tribunas, pero esto sólo
los puso más entusiastas.
Aristide, ex sacerdote que sabe entusiasmar a una
multitud, habló en creole, francés, español e inglés sobre
la importancia de la revolución de esclavos y su visión del
futuro de Haití. Pero también se aseguró de mostrar a sus
seguidores, invitados y periodistas extranjeros presentes
que no tenía ninguna intención de renunciar.
Aristide repitió también uno de los temas de la celebración: “¡Haití es la madre de la libertad... La primera
república negra es y siempre será el punto de referencia
geográfico para la libertad de la gente negra!”.
Gonaïves es un semillero de sentimiento contra Aristide
y se ha visto en su mayor parte paralizada por las protestas
y la violencia desde el 22 de setiembre en que fue asesinado
un líder de una pandilla progubernamental, Amiot Metáyer.
Su pandilla, conocida alguna vez como el “Ejército Caníbal”,
y que solía hostigar a manifestantes antigubernamentales
y a cualquiera al que considerase no suficientemente leal
a Aristide, se cambió de bando después del brutal asesinato,
del que culpó al Palacio Nacional.
Desde hace más de tres meses han marchado, quemado barricadas y protestando, demandando la renuncia de
Aristide. Repetidos ataques policiales sobre la barriada del
grupo junto al mar han dejado decenas de muertos, principalmente transeúntes.
Sólo una semana antes de las celebraciones, sacerdotes católicos de la localidad habían deplorado la falta de
respeto gubernamental a los derechos humanos y culpado a
Aristide directamente, pidiéndole hacer un “gesto patriótico”
y renunciar.
“Hoy son nuestros hermanos los que quieren hacernos
esclavos en nuestro propio país. Tal situación es intolerable
y nos repugna”, dijo el padre Marc Eddy Dessalines el 23
de diciembre. “No vemos cómo podemos celebrar el 1 de
enero del 2004 cuando la ciudad está llena de desolación,
tristeza y temor”.
En la capital, críticos del gobierno trataban de celebrar
varias manifestaciones. Un grupo de varios cientos de estudiantes, profesores, artistas, entre otros, marcharon para
unirse a una protesta mucho más grande de miles de manifestantes de la Plataforma Democrática de la Sociedad Civil
y Partidos Políticos de la Oposición, que agrupa a varias
decenas de asociaciones empresariales, sindicatos y partidos políticos.
El grupo pronto fue atacado por policías antimotines
fuertemente armados y encapuchados, algunos de los cuales
dispararon en dirección de los manifestantes. Al menos
dos personas resultaron heridas de bala.
Presidente haitiano Jean-Bertrand Aristide (der.) y
presidente sudafricano Thabo Mbeki (izq.)
Photo: Daniel Morel
La Policía bloqueó también la marcha más grande,
usando gas lacrimógeno y disparando sus armas al aire.
Algunos manifestantes se reagruparon y trataron de dirigirse al centro, pero fueron detenidos por partidarios de
Aristide que blandían piedras, botellas y pistolas, y que se
negaron a permitir que los periodistas se acercaran.
Aristide terminó su discurso del 1 de enero prediciendo
que la próxima década traería mejoras en la atención en salud,
educación, indicadores sociales y económicos, y llamando
a la “paz en el 2004”, pero el 5 de enero la plataforma
opositora anunció más manifestaciones y huelgas.
origen: lapress.org
NAFTA y EZLN, diez años juntos
por John Ross
19 Enero — Poco después de medianoche, la oscurísima
noche de Año Nuevo súbitamente cobró vida con sombras
moviéndose precipitadas.
El sonido de las botas de caucho contra el pavimento
resonó en los silenciosos barrios de las afueras de San
Cristóbal de las Casas, en Chiapas, el estado más meridional y empobrecido de México. Al otro lado del estrecho
Puente Blanco, oscuras columnas marchaban en cadencia
militar. Con sus rostros ocultos bajo pasamontañas y pañuelos,
hombres y mujeres avanzaban hacia el centro de la ciudad.
Así empezó la rebelión del Ejército Zapatista de
Liberación Nacional (EZLN) el 1 de enero de 1994, en la
primera hora en que entraba en vigor el Tratado de Libre
Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN).
Durante los preparativos para el TLCAN, el entonces
presidente Carlos Salinas (1988-94) se había jactado de que
el tratado comercial elevaría a México al primer mundo,
pero la toma de San Cristóbal y otras seis ciudades del
sureste de Chiapas por empobrecidos agricultores indígenas
recordó por la fuerza a la nación que estaba todavía profundamente enfangada en el tercero. La insurrección zapatista dejó en situación embarazosa a Salinas al comienzo
de un tumultuoso año electoral hasta que finalmente dejó
el cargo en desgracia.
Diez años después, México sigue en el tercer mundo,
con una de las brechas de ingresos entre ricos y pobres más
amplias fuera de África, según el Banco Mundial (BM).
Un informe del BM emitido con motivo del 10º aniversario del TLCAN, titulado Las lecciones del TLCAN para
los países de América Latina y el Caribe: un resumen de
hallazgos de investigación, concluye en que si bien el
tratado comercial ha espoleado el desarrollo económico de
México, sus beneficios han sido desiguales entre sectores
y regiones, especialmente en el sur, donde viven los mexicanos más pobres.
Aunque el reciente estudio del BM dice que los
agricultores mexicanos, incluso los que viven a nivel de
subsistencia, no se vieron afectados adversamente por el
acuerdo comercial, la organización humanitaria británica
OXFAM discrepa de este punto de vista.
Un informe de OXFAM emitido en agosto sobre la
situación de los cultivadores de maíz dice que los precios
reales del maíz mexicano han disminuido en más del 70%
desde la implementación del TLCAN en 1994. Como
resultado, 15 millones de mexicanos que dependen del
cultivo han visto profundamente disminuidos sus ingresos.
Según un reciente estudio de la Fundación Carnegie
para la Paz Internacional, 1.3 millones de agricultores
mexicanos han abandonado sus predios como resultado
directo de la inundación de importaciones suscitada por el
TLCAN. México importará 6 millones de toneladas de
maíz en el 2004, 60% del cual se considera que es genéticamente modificado.
Como predijeron los zapatistas hace una década, el
tratado comercial pronto haría sonar la marcha fúnebre para
los campesinos mexicanos. Desde la firma del TLCAN,
más de 3,000 mexicanos, muchos de ellos agricultores
desplazados, han perdido la vida cruzando la frontera con
EEUU en busca de empleo remunerado.
Aunque el TLCAN fue anunciado como un elemento
disuasivo de la inmigración “ilegal”, las cifras de hecho
ZAPATISTAS, sigue en la página proxima